Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 9781501731907, 9780801422508

Citation preview

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 188o

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The unveiling of the Pushkin monument, Moscow, June 6, 188o; engraving by N. Chekhov from Vsemirnaia Illiustratsiia, July 1, 188o

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of r88o MARCUS C. LEVITT

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

STUDIES OF THE HARRIMAN INSTITUTE

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Studies of the Harriman Institute COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Founded as the Russian Institute in 1946, theW. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union is the oldest research institution of its kind in the United States. The book series Studies of the Harriman Institute, begun in 1953, helps bring to a wider audience some of the work conducted under its auspices by professors, degree candidates, and visiting fellows. The faculty of the Institute, without necessarily agreeing with the conclusions reached in these books, believes their publication will contribute to both scholarship and a greater public understanding of the Soviet Union. A list of the Studies appears at the back of the book.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright© 1989 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Comell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 1485o. First published 1989 by Cornell University Press. International Standard Book Number o-80r4-2250-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 88-43237 Printed in the United States of America Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information appears on the last page of the book. The paper in this book is acid-free and meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Contents

h~u

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Note on Translations, Transliterations, and Dates Introduction: The Pushkin Celebration of I88o and the Crisis of Russian Culture I The Debate Is Formulated: The Question of a Monument to Pushkin, I837-I866 Those Who Kept the Light Burning: Working toward a 2 Monument, I869-I88o 3 The Celebration That Organized Itself 4 Turgenev's Last Stand s Dostoevsky "Hijacks" the Celebration Conclusion: Aftermath and Legacy: Pushkin, I88oI987 Notes Bibliography Index

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

~

xi

I r8 43 59 9r r22

I47 I76 2!7 225

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Preface

The basic research for this book was carried out in Soviet libraries and archives on grants from the International Research and Exchanges Board during the final, dreary years of the Brezhnev era. The period of its gestation and metamorphosis has seen remarkable changes in the Soviet Union. Developments under Mikhail Gorbachev have seemed to parallel in many striking ways the tensionfilled yet exhilarating process of liberalization described in these pages, and they lend new immediacy to the issues raised by the unsuccessful 11 thaw" of r88o. Just as the challenge for the Great Reforms of Alexander's reign was to overcome the heavy legacy of Nicholaevan absolutism, so Gorbachev's 11 perestroika" represents a rejection of Stalinist totalitarianism. Iakov Grot, main organizer of the Pushkin-monument fund drive, declared the central axioms of his work to be 11 glasnost'" (a term that hardly needs translation today) and 11 Strict accountability." The same slogans-glasnost', self-regulation, democracy, freedom of the press-first heard in the r86os during the period of the Great Reforms, are now heard once again. Furthermore, just as the 11 thaw" of r88o looked back to the unfinished agenda of the democratic reforms of the Emancipation, Gorbachev's liberalization is taking up the unfinished program of Krushchev's de-Stalinization, curtailed in the mid-r96os. At issue is the same basic problem of democratization and power sharing. Today under Gorbachev, as in r88o, the state is taking steps to win a disaffected intelligentsia over to its side by promises to limit

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Viii

PREFACE

the government's monopoly over the institutions and production of culture and to grant some measure of political autonomy to "society." Following the pattern established in the last century, to which the Pushkin Celebration of r88o greatly contributed, the creative intelligentsia and the press as well as a myriad of amateur and private associations have stepped in to fill a need created by the lack of alternative forums for political life. As in r88o, many intellectuals, while eager to see changes, are uncertain about the sincerity of the new government policy and skeptical about its prospects for success. They fear being eo-opted from above by the state, or being perceived from below as having sold out, and losing what measure of independence and authority they have managed to preserve. Moreover, they do not want to find themselves in a vulnerable position should the regime fall or change course. On a trip to the USSR in the summer of 1987, I heard Russians of all walks of life express their apprehension that Gorbachev's program, for all its admirable goals and attractive slogans, would be limited to much talk and no action. Such might be a fitting epitaph for the Pushkin Celebration itself. Indeed any assertion that a "middle ground" of toleration and democratic pluralism truly exists, now as in r 88o, remains highly problematic. State-sponsored glasnost', now as then, represents liberalization but not liberalism as a creed. Censorship is lessened, but the machinery remains intact. As in I 88o, circumstances of increased glasnost' do not necessarily lead to a common ground of toleration, and the new pluralism also gives freedom to sectarian cliques. Traditional battle lines between Western-oriented liberals and conservative Russophiles are being re-formed. Gorbachev appears not only in the role of "loving dictator" who can take back what he gives but in the paradoxical position of mediator and peacemaker among increasingly extremist factions. The ultimate success of the new thaw in terms of establishing a new tolerance and a new space for liberal discourse remains an open question; as in r88o, liberalism remains an assertion and a potential rather than an established, demonstrable fact. Given the lack of a quantifiable, grass-roots public opinion, even assertions of liberalism and democracy emerge as ultimately selfserving and hegemonic. As many contemporaries (such as N. K. Mikhailovsky) argued in r88o, real openness in Russian intellectual life can only follow political "guarantees." Despite the legacy of failed thaws of the past and the many cen-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

PREFACE

ix

tripedal forces that threaten to undermine peaceful consensus, there are also grounds for optimism. Gorbachev's "revolution" may reflect-as some commentators have suggested-a basic social realignment of forces within the Soviet Union, the sanctioning of an autonomous "middle class" of technocrats and managers who recognize the necessity of free access to information and the liabilities of bureaucratic control. In this sense, Russia in the post-Stalin era, for the first time in its history predominantly urban and educated, may provide a far more secure social basis for a "middle class" liberal ideology than it did in the later nineteenth century. The Pushkin Celebration of r88o may be seen both as an archetypal"thaw," with dramatic parallels to today's situation, and as a key moment in modern Russian history when political and literary interests dramatically merged, enthroning not only Pushkin but Russian literature as carriers of both the moral and political interests of the nation. Although in 1987, the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Pushkin's death, celebrating the poet may have lost direct political relevance, the undisputed centrality of Russian writers in the nation's intellectual and political life, as well as Pushkin's mythic stature as the hero of Russian culture-both of which the celebration of r 88o went far to establish-remains a distinguishing feature of the contemporary Soviet scene. Most important, an examination of this largely forgotten episode challenges long-held assumptions about nineteenth-century Russian history and sensitizes us to the rich range of possibilities that were present but remained unfulfilled. While the new middle ground for open discourse that the celebration promised and the conviction of its observers and participants that things would change for the better may have been fleeting, or even, as Mikhailovsky held, a self-induced mirage, it was a dream whose legitimacy was publicly acknowledged and celebrated. Because this book has been in the works so long and gone through so many revisions, the task of acknowledging my manifold debts itself threatens to turn into a ponderous labor of historiographical excavation. My sincerest thanks to my teachers at Columbia University, Robert Belknap and Robert Maguirei to the International Research and Exchanges Board in the United States and the Ministry of Culture in the USSR, which made possible my study in libraries and archives in Leningrad and Moscow in I980-r982i to the many colleagues who have read and commented on the manuscript at various

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

X

PREFACE

stages in its genesis (I will not implicate them in its many shortcomings by naming them); to my colleagues at the University of Southern California for their consistent support and encouragement; to the publisher's (anonymous) reviewers, whose lucid judgments and criticisms helped me to clarify the basic premises and remedy some of the shortcomings of the study; and, finally, my deepest gratitude to my friend, colleague, companion, wife, and most helpful critic, Alice Taylor, who supported me morally and intellectually throughout the enterprise, over many years and across several continents. M. C. L.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Los Angeles

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Note on Translations, Transliterations, and Dates

All translations are mine, except where the source is given in the notes. In transliterating Russian names, titles, and words, I have followed the Library of Congress system (System 11 as described in J. Thomas Shaw, The Transliteration of Modern Russian for English-Language Publications [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967]L with the following modifications. Surnames are rendered with -sky rather than -skii (as in Dostoevsky). I have given the anglicized version of many Russian first names (e.g., Alexander, not Aleksandr, Peter rather than PetrL and retained well-known spellings of certain surnames (e.g., Tolstoy not Tolstoi, Gogol not Gogol'). I have also followed common practice in reproducing Russian surnames of foreign origin (e.g., Engelhardt, not Engel'gardt; Plehve rather than Pleve). Except where explicitly stated to the contrary, all dates are given Old Style, that is, according to the Julian calendar in use in Russia until 1918. To convert Old Style to our (Gregorian) calendar, add twelve days to nineteenth-century dates, thirteen to twentieth.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

M. C. L.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of I 88o

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy; invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable .... The nation is governed by all that has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually there. Add only, that whatever power that exists will have itself, by and by, organized; working secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions, it will never rest until it get to work free unencumbered, visible to all. Democracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant. -THOMAS CARLYLE, On Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History, r 840 Pushkin is an extraordinary phenomenon-perhaps a unique manifestation of the Russian spirit: he represents a stage to which Russians will have developed in perhaps two hundred years' time. -NIKOLAI GoGOL, "A Few Words about Pushkin," 1834

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

A new opinion about such a great phenomenon as Pushkin cannot suddenly arise out of nothing and appear ready-made; rather, it must have developed from the life of society itself, like everything that is alive; each new day, each new fact in life and in literature must also have changed our way of looking at Pushkin. -VrssARION BELINSKY, "The Works of Alexander Pushkin," 1843 He is dissolved in the air we breathe. He is in the bread we eat, the wine we drink. His verses are not really standing on our shelves. No, they are always with us, dissolved in our very blood. -ALEXANDER KUSHNER, 19R7 It is not so much Pushkin, our national poet, as our relationship to Pushkin that has become our national characteristic. -ANDREI Bnov, Articles from a Novel, 1986

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction: The Pushkin Celebration of r88o and the Crisis of Russian Culture In early June r88o, the elite of Russian intellectual life gathered in Moscow to celebrate the opening of a monument to Alexander Pushkin. It was Moscow's first monument to a hero of culture, rather than of arms or politics, and had been erected on public initiative and by public funds. The celebration lasted three days and included public speeches, banquets, a church service, literary and musical presentations, as well as an elaborate unveiling ceremony. It drew a tremendous, unprecedented response. Never before had so many of Russia's leading novelists, poets, playwrights, editors and publishers, critics and reporters, educators and scholars, actors, artists and musicians, city and state officials-so many of the nation's cultural leaders and opinion makers-gathered together in one place to salute Russian literature. The list of those involved reads like a "who's who" of midcentury Russian culture-including Fedor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Ostrovsky, Gleb Uspensky, Ivan Aksakov, Nikolai Strakhov, Pavel Annenkov, Andrei Kraevsky, Aleksei Suvorin, Mikhail Katkov, Nikolai Rubenshtein, Vasilii Kliuchevsky, and many more. Those who lived through the "Pushkin Days" of June 6-8, r88o, felt that they had experienced a major historical happening. The newspapers declared: "It marks a turning point in our life" (Russkii kur'er); "These minutes of pure ecstasy will be written in indelible characters in the chronicle of Russian literature," "an event ... of huge importance for the history of our development and culture" (Golos); 11 Never before did celebrations of a similar kind in Rus'* *Rus'-an archaic and romantic name for Russia.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

2

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

have such universal importance, never did they assume such a general character," "an event of tremendous historical significance" (Nedelia); "Yesterday [June 6, r88o] should go down in the history of Russian development, in the history of Moscow! ... We place this magnificent holiday, full of high ideas, first among the cherished landmarks of the further, unceasing development of the Russian people .... [These days] will, we believe, serve as an epoch-making turning point" (Sovremennye izvestiia). Ivan Aksakov proclaimed the celebration "a genuine event in the historical development of Russian society, a great act of our national self-consciousness, a new era, a turning point for the new, young generation." 1 Even the archconservative Konstantin Leont'ev, who denounced the "liberals'" exploitation of the celebration, suggested (with a touch of irony?) that it was a harbinger of "a profound historical revolution [perevorot]" in Russian life, comparable to Russia's conversion to Christianity or Peter the Great's forced Westernization.2 The "literary holiday" was itself a foreign borrowing, dating back at least to Garrick's famous Shakespeare Jubilee of I769, which provided the prototype for similar celebrations that by r88o had become a regular part of the European cultural scene. 3 Like Garrick's jubilee, the Pushkin Celebration lasted three days, featured special orations, music, parades and other special entertainments, and attracted a great amount of attention. Like the Shakespeare Jubilee, the celebration in Moscow sparked a decisive turnabout in the poet's reputation and inspired a quantum leap in textual criticism and literary scholarship. Long before the Shakespeare Jubilee, however, the strength and stability of English political and cultural life had been firmly established, whereas in Russia Pushkin's significance had become the focus of bitter controversy that questioned the very existence of a Russian society and culture. Pushkin's name had acquired tremendous symbolic value, over and above the literary worth of his writings. Pushkin's highly semiotic function was obvious to everyone in r 88o. A leading newspaper commentator of the day, Vladimir Mikhnevich, wrote shortly after the celebration that "the issue here had nothing to do with the Turgenevs and the Dostoevskys and their speeches, and didn't really have anything to do with Pushkin either. It had to do with the idea whose expression and personification they became in the eyes of the public, and in those unexpressed but universally clear-clearer in fact, than ever-those clearly felt social

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF

1880

3

and intellectual strivings that were in the air at the banquets honoring Pushkin, and which comprised so to speak the living soul of the event we just lived through." 4 This book attempts to clarify just what this "idea" was and to define the unique function "Pushkin" acquired in Russian culture and cultural self-consciousness. Hence it hardly considers Pushkin the writer at all, nor does it concern the place of his writings in Russian literature or in literary criticism per se. Rather, the focus here is on a special moment in Russian history when political and intellectual hopes for the nation's future became concentrated on the liberating role, and rightful place, of a free literature-personified in Pushkin-and on the unique convergence of forces which brought it about.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Crisis of Russian Cultural Identity The reasons how and why Pushkin acquired such momentous significance for his countrymen sharply illuminate the unique place Russian literature came to play in modern Russian cultural life and national identity. Celebrating Pushkin in 188o promised to resolve those "cursed questions" about Russia's political and cultural destiny that had tormented Russian intellectuals for decades. From the start of the century they had been asking themselves when Russia, already acknowledged as a great European power, would free itself from a slavish imitation of Europe in cultural and intellectual matters. In the "civilized" European world, as they knew, "mute, dumb" Russia was often cited as a cultural desert with no intellectual life at all. In 1840, three years after Pushkin's death, Thomas Carlyle could still write that "the Czar of all the Russias, he is strong, with so many bayonets, Cossacks and cannons; and does a great feat in keeping such a tract of earth politically together; but he cannot yet speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still audible. The Nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb Russia can be." 5 The sense of undisguised superiority that men like Carlyle felt toward their own Dantes and Shakespeares was mirrored on the Russian side by a gnawing sense of cultural inferiority, and at times, despair. A repeated complaint of Russian critics during the first half of the nineteenth century had been that "we have no literature," and

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

4

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

even in r 88o, after a period of literary achievement which from today's standpoint seems so rich as to rival Periclean Greece or Elizabethan England, many Russians still questioned the existence and viability of their society and culture.6 Carlyle expressed one of the basic antimonies in Russian intellectual life: the stark opposition between the state, formidable in its brute force, and the nation, taken to mean the collective intellectual and moral life of the people, as manifested in its poets. The national poet, the Dante or Shakespeare, represents the "voice" of the nation, its soul, its mark of inner content and worth; having a Dante vindicates one's national essence. The ongoing crisis for Russian intellectuals, both under tsar and commissar, has been twofold: first, their political disenfranchisement and quest for a valid niche in the "state" scheme of things; and second, their anomalous position vis a vis the nation, that is, the question of what their relationship should be toward the Russian "n arod," the illiterate and non-Westernized peasantry. The traditional questions for Russian intellectuals have been, "Do we have an intellectual life?" and "If so, what should our role be in it, and what value system should we represent?" Denied political recognition from the state on the one hand, and divided from the silent masses by a tremendous cultural gap on the other, the Russian intellectual faced a constant need for self-definition and chronic feelings of alienation. For the Russians, it was Pushkin who came to serve as their Dante, as the validator of their national self-worth. And it was the Pushkin Celebration that turned into the forum for this validation-a brief, intoxicating moment when it seemed as if the long and painful conflict between state and nation would be happily and peacefully resolved, the moment when modern Russian national identity consolidated around its literature, with Pushkin as its focus.

Reading Public and Public Opinion A full answer to why this is so-why Russian literature, and Pushkin, came to take such a pivotal place in Russian self-consciousness-would have to take into account the complex interaction of social, intellectual, literary, and political developments in nineteenth-century Russia. A few perspectives on the problem are offered in this book. The vital connection between Pushkin and the growth

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF

1880

5

of modern Russian national identity may be sought, first of all, in the crucial place literature played in the formation of what was to become conscious of itself as the "intelligentsia." Some of the earliest mentions of the existence of this new and ambiguous group appear in the descriptions of the crowds who flocked to the house where the poet lay dying in late January 1837· Baron Heeckeren, ambassador from the Netherlands and adoptive father to Pushkin's killer, himsel( for example, confessed:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I am bound to say that public opinion expressed itself far more strongly than was expected on the occasion of Mr. Pushkin's death. However, it must be made clear that this opinion was not that of the upper class .... The opinion to which I refer is that of the third estate, if that name can be given to the class in Russia which is intermediary between the nobility and senior officials and the mass of the population, who are totally unaffected by an event beyond their comprehension. It is composed of men of letters, artists, lesser civil servants, the merchant class, etc. Mr. Pushkin's death has revealed, or so the authorities seem to believe, the existence of a party of which he was the leader, perhaps only by virtue of his eminently Russian talent. 7 Although, contrary to the tsar's fears, no· revolutionary "party" was revealed, this new "intermediate" class was clearly beginning to make itself felt. The nascent intelligentsia represented not merely a new social strata but rather, primarily, an intellectual one: a new, Western-style reading public. 8 Ten years after Pushkin's death, Belinsky acknowledged the central role that Russian literature had played in creating a new "special class" with its own corporate consciousness and in bringing a species of Russian "public opinion" into existence. Belinsky declared that "our literature has created the morals of our society, has already educated several generations of widely divergent character, has paved the way for an inner rapprochement of the estates [sblizhenie soslovii], has formed a kind of public opinion and produced a sort of special class in society that differs from the usual middle estate in that it consists not of merchants and commoners [meshchanstvoJ alone, but of people of all estates who have been drawn together through education-which in Russia centers exclusively on the love of literature."9 This "special class" of readers, which had been summoned into being by Pushkin and his fellow writers, was to be guided by the literary critics, self-appointed leaders of public opinion. Belinsky, who did the most to promote Pushkin as Russia's "national poet," at the same time earned himself

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

6

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

the role of Russia's premier literary-social critic, thereby defining the social tasks of art and the relation of critic to author and public for much of subsequent Russian intellectual life.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Is a Russian Shakespeare Possible~ Attacks on Pushkin from Left and Right Even during Pushkin's own lifetime he had been advanced several times-unsuccessfully-as candidate for Russia's "national poet," whose achievement might redress the balance between state and nation. As happened later with Belinsky, who turned away from Pushkin in favor of what he saw as more explicitly socially conscious art, both ideological considerations and contemporary political developments intervened. In the early r82os, Bestuzhev, Ryleev, Kiukhel'beker, Tumansky, and their friends expressed the hope that Pushkin would become the savior of Russian letters, although even then some of them criticized Pushkin for sacrificing the freethinking, rebellious Byronism of "The Gypsies" to what they saw as the hedonistic dandyism of Eugene Onegin's early chapters. The failure, however, of the Decembrist revolt of r825 and the subsequent era of reaction under Nicholas I ended that tentative Pushkin cult and created conditions highly unfavorable either for Pushkin's career or for his acceptance as "national poet." Nicholas I reacted to Decembrism and to the kind of despairing negation of Russian culture expressed by Peter Chaadaev in his first "Letter on the Philosophy of Histc.ry" with the notorious doctrine of "official nationality." Like modern Soviet propaganda, this state ideology insisted that (in the words of Pushkin's nemesis Count A. Kh. Benkendorf): "Russia's past was admirable, her present is more than magnificent, and as for its future, it is more than the most brilliant imagination can picture: this, my dear, is the point of view from which Russian history should be conceived and written." 10 Extreme mistrust of nascent public opinion coupled with such outspoken hypocrisy in cultural matters only served to further alienate Russian intellectuals and throw them into deeper despondence over Russia's future. For the slowly emerging Russian intelligentsia, oppressive Nicholaevan Russia personified the state writ large. The doctrine of "official nationality" totally subsumed the nation into the state sphere of influence. It denied the existence of the nation by

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF

1880

7

claiming as its own all of Russian intellectual life-society, public opinion, culture, and the narod, the Russian people; no nonofficial "nationhood" was to be allowed or acknowledged. Pushkin found himself in double jeopardy: on the one hand, compromised in the eyes of many (including Belinsky) by his proximity to the court, and on the other, mistrusted and hindered by his imperial "benefactors," who considered him a hidden Decembrist rebel. Furthermore, official nationality was planned and orchestrated by those very bureaucrats-Benkendorf and Count S. Uvarov, minister of educationwho were Pushkin's greatest enemies and who after his death systematically attempted to deny him public recognition. Those who detested Nicholas's reactionary politics understandably balked at claiming that Russia had a national genius. Because of Russia's distressing state, hard-core believers in Pushkin had to argue (as did Gogol in 1836) that Pushkin was "the Russian man in his development as he will appear, perhaps, in two hundred years." 11 Even such rather conservative members of the literary establishment as Iakov Grot, the man most responsible for the success of the Pushkin Celebration of r88o, expressed doubt (in a letter of 1848) that Russia was in any condition to produce Shakespeares or Goethes. He asked his friend Peter Pletnev: "Do you really think that, given the state of Russian society, Shakespeares and Goethes are possible? True, equally strong talents are met in all ages, but they can only reach fullness of development in times of the most flourishing enlightenment. Karamzin, Zhukovsky and Pushkin serve as the standard for the highest literary merit that could have matured in presentday Russian society; but can you really say they achieved the full height they might have achieved given different social conditions? "12 To proclaim Pushkin a world-class genius meant in some measure to sanction Russia's oppressive political, economic, and cultural order. This is why the "Pushkin question" became a widely debated issue during the r86os, when the intelligentsia began to consider the special nature of its mission in the new society brought forth by the emancipation of the serfs. It was at this time that the word "intelligentsia" itself came into use. The word reflected the prevailing attitude that educated Russians represented a small, progressive force that, given the backward state of the newly liberated masses, must take the lead in working for their political liberation and intellectual and spiritual enlightenment.l3 Pisarev's "nihilism" represented the extreme of this view, a glorifi-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

8

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

cation of rational egoism and a total negation of "official" Russia. Where Benkendorf described Russia as the best of all possible worlds and asserted that history had already achieved its ends-a picture of total stasis-Pisarev reversed the poles on this utopianism, declaring the ideal to be change and destruction for their own sake: "What can be destroyed," he proclaimed, "should be; that which survives the blow is fit to remain; that which falls to pieces is trash." Where official nationality had denied the independence of Russian intellectual life, Pisarev envisioned a small, elite force of right thinkers-a "thinking proletariat"-who would take upon themselves the task of freeing the oppressed masses. 14 For Pisarev, this elite force and the public opinion it represented fulfilled a purely negative function: to destroy all authority, all that was old or established. "Populism" of the next decade represented nihilism inside out: for trust in the power of "critically thinking" individuals the Populists substituted faith in the peasants' revolutionary instincts; renouncing all claims to political rights and power, they strove to cleanse the guilt they bore, owing to their privileged position in society, by self-effacement before the narod. The most famous casualty of Pisarev's nihilism was Pushkin. (The Populists, heeding Pisarev's "destruction of aesthetics," ignored the poet.) Significantly, both extreme value systems-both nihilism and official nationality-which claimed to speak in the name of nation and state, respectively, shared a common antipathy to the poet. IS For both revolutionary and reactionary, Pushkin represented a "marker" of extreme negative value, a potentially threatening authority to be "dethroned." Some of the reasons why this came to be the case are explored in Chapter I, where Pushkin's image in Russian criticism is discussed in connection with the start of the campaign to build him a monument. The extremely polarized debate over Pushkin in the I86os, which revolved around the imagery of dethroning or enthroning Pushkin, bowing down to the poet's effigy or spitting on his grave, allowed for no middle ground.

Pushkin as Conciliator: A Cultural Neutral Zone It was just such a middle ground that the Pushkin Celebration offered, a compromise position between monolithic state and radicalized nation. As such the Pushkin Celebration suggested an al-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF 1880

9

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

ternative model of Russian society to those extremely polarized schemes that the zealots of autocracy and of revolution had advanced. The Soviet semioticians Iurii Lotman and Boris Uspensky have shown how the bipolar value scheme that I have applied here to official nationality and nihilism applies to much of old Russian culture.l6 Lotman and Uspensky oppose this characteristically polarized Russian model(with its binary choice of heaven or hell, all or nothing, win or lose)-to a tripartite model(i.e., with an additional "neutral zone"-not only a heaven and a hell but a purgatory), which they assert developed in the later Middle Ages in the West. Historically, the neutral zone, which at first occupies a precarious position, gradually widens its sphere until it becomes the predominant value, and allows the development of the secular institutions of modern society, such as banking or the press, which had been inadmissible under the bipolar, medieval value system. 1 7 Whereas the bipolar model allows for only revolution or stasis, and hence tends to create a utopian idealization of either the past or the future, the tripartite model centers on the present and views change not in apocalyptic terms but as compromise and reform. In this value system, extremes (in terms of our discussion, both fanatical revolutionaries and inflexible monarchists) are crowded out, or relegated to the fringes of the model, while the new "neutral zone," a common ground of tolerance and compromise, increasingly asserts itself. In r88o Pushkin and the Pushkin Celebration came to mark this neutral zone, to stand for Russian society's independence both from the state and from the self-proclaimed radicals of the left. According to the well-known journalist I. F. Vasilevsky, the "idea" of the Pushkin Celebration was that in these festivities everything was the public's: public initiative, public participation, public thought, and public glory. They knew no wardship, followed no one else's bidding, and lacked the form and external coloration that the world of officialdom imparts. The public's desires displayed themselves for the first time with so much freedom, within incontestably legitimate, irreproachably legal bounds .... The hopes [expressed by the celebration]-and there is no need to hide them, for there is nothing masonic in them-boil down to freedom of thought, to freedom of the press, to a greater scope for society's independent activity in the name of the state and the public good. The public word [delivered] at the festivities fostered and invited these dreams .... This word said that Russian society does not exist only in the imagination but in living reality; that there is cement in it that

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

IO

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

connects it all together into one inspired mass; that it has matured and grown into manhood; that it thinks, and can grieve, and be conscious of itself; that it counts freedom of expression as one of its natural, inborn needs; and that, via its literature, it has earned itself its diploma [attestat zrelosti].IB

The new (and short-lived) promise of a new toleration in Russian intellectual life became possible for a variety of reasons. In part it came about as a resolution to the political crisis that had been building in Russia since the end of the Russo-Turkish War in r8y8. "Revolutionaries and liberals, the tsar and his officials, representatives of all social tendencies and groupings agreed on one thing: that Russia stood on the threshold of decisive events, on the brink of a sharp change." 19 The celebration came in the midst of a "thaw" (a word Turgenev actually used at the time)20 in which the state seemed on the verge of putting an end to Russian absolutism, either via a constitution or by some other more partial sharing of political power in Russian society. Despite a series of public scandals among the various groups that organized the celebration and which presumed to speak for public opinion, indeed largely because of them and the intense interest they provoked, celebrating Pushkin seemed to many a genuine exercise in self-rule and an unexpectedly powerful demonstration of the new strength of Russian public opinion. Contemporaries were also anxious to note that the celebration, as one paper put it, was "an event significant not only in its idea, but also in the manner in which it was carried out." 21 Much of my attention is directed at the creation of a "middle ground," not only as an idea in Russian criticism, but also as it developed in the institutions of Russian literary life-the periodical press and book-publishing industries, literary fraternities, academia, the censorship and other government bodies that interacted with literary life-which contributed to the making of the Pushkin Celebration.

Promises and Paradoxes of Liberalism The process, however, of forging such a "neutral ground" of free speech and democratic pluralism was fraught with anxiety and contradiction. Apart from the obvious threats and temptations that the government and revolutionary movement offered, infighting and factionalism within the intelligentsia continually threatened to under-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF

I88o

II

cut the ostensible desire for democratic openness. Turgenev, in I88o the publicly acknowledged leader of Russian liberalism, considered its organizational aspects crucial, and worked to turn the celebration into a unified front of Russian literati-to the point of taking part in a plot to exclude his archenemy, the conservative Katkov, from the event. The story of Turgenev's successes and failures in I88o reflects the precariousness inherent in his position as defender of the liberal position. In his organizational activity and in his well-known speech at the holiday, Turgenev painfully confronted the dual issues that chronically dogged the intelligentsia: the problem of the intelligentsia's political enfranchisement by the state, and of its right to speak in the name of nation, the narod. In both cases, Turgenev clearly enunciated liberal Westernizing principles of the forties. The state was to grant self-rule, and the illiterate narod would one day come to assimilate the values of its high-brow literature. Both halves of the equation were disputed. Nikolai Mikhailovsky, a leading spokesman for the Populists and heir to the social critics of the sixties, was highly skeptical both of the prospects for political power-sharing in Russian society and of Pushkin's new popularity that Turgenev alleged. Turgenev argued that the Pushkin Celebration marked a general "return to Pushkin" on the part of the intelligentsia and a healthy rejection of the nihilist "aberration," which he felt had been an unfortunate but perhaps necessary stage in Russian social development; hence it followed that the intelligentsia was now ready to assume a responsible political role. Mikhailovsky countered that this was all wishful thinking; he saw no immediate grounds for thinking that anything had changed in Russian society, including its attitude toward Pushkin: "Pushkin was the pretext, symbol, cloak-what you will, only not the immediate hero of the celebration .... People who constantly move about in the sphere of ideas and public affairs naturally must either manufacture something for themselves to make a fuss over, or latch onto something readymade [like this]." 22 Mikhailovsky doubted the intelligentsia's ability to provide a political counterweight to the inertia of tsarist society as a whole; furthermore, true to the spirit of populism, he was inclined to view the struggle for bourgeois political rights as selfserving and immoral. This much-touted public opinion reflected but the reified view of a narrow minority. The liberals' dream of Russia's future as what he called "a complete and permanent Pushkin Celebration"(!) might be tenable in theory, and even desirable, but Mi-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

!2

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

khailovsky demanded more convincing evidence of change than promises and symbolic celebrations. Tolstoy's much publicized refusal of Turgenev's invitation to join in the celebration reflected a similar rejection of public opinion, but sprang not from political considerations per se but from his growing perception of the tremendous gap separating educated Russians from the narod. Tolstoy had begun to question the legitimacy of modern, Westernized, secular intellectual life in Russia, which he felt was alien to the spirit of the people, and he feared the consequences of erecting false public idols; he had already begun to examine the religious ideals of the people, and his wholesale rejection of Russian literature itself was not far off. Dostoevsky's famous speech on Pushkin called for universal reconciliation and brought the Pushkin Celebration to an ecstatic climax, yet, like Mikhailovsky and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky rejected the political and cultural autonomy of the intelligentsia. He gave a radically different reading of Pushkin which turned Turgenev's "liberal" interpretation of public opinion upside down. The notion of "public opinion" (obshchee, sometimes obshchestvennoe, mnenie) was interpreted differently by various ideological factions and, like the commonly used expressions "liberal" and "conservative," often carried far different meanings and connotations in Russia from those familiar to us in the West. In Russian, the word obshchee carried all the ambiguities of the Russian concept of obshchestvo, commonly translated as "society."23 For Turgenev, whose position is perhaps closest to what we think of as classical Western liberalism, the words suggested an individual's political right to self-expression and European parliamentarianism. For Dostoevsky and the Slavophiles (particularly Konstantin Aksakov), the words obshchee mnenie recalled the sacred communal principle (like that of the obshchina). "Free speech" was not primarily a political right but an inviolable moral principle; the only true "public opinion" derives its divine power from the people as a whole (from the communal, Church-bearing narod, which might or might not include the intelligentsia)-and not from any secular political authority. 24 Dostoevsky denied the whole notion of a value-free "neutral zone" (that is, a Western-style "public opinion" based on individual rights). To him Pushkin was not a liberal demanding individual autonomy as he was to Turgenev and his friends, but, on the contrary, a prophet sent by God to demand humility and self-abnegation, to summon an errant intelligentsia

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF 1880

13

back into the fold of nation and narod (which in Dostoevsky's view were inseparable), and to bring Russia's "new word" of salvation to the dying civilization of Europe. 25 Dostoevsky envisioned the Pushkin Celebration as the start of a new chapter of divine history. He turned the tables on all those Carlyles, foreign and domestic, who would deny Russia's national greatness and, according to his critics, tried by sleight of hand to transform a holiday celebrating intelligentsia independence into a hidden apology for tsarist autocracy.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Historiographical Problem In r88o many Russians who felt that great and historic events were being enacted expressed the hope that all of the articles, feuilletons, editorials, speeches, toasts, and other documents relating to the celebration would be catalogued, annotated, preserved, and published in special collections and albums, so that future historians would engrave those "indelible characters" into history books. The Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, which had organized the celebration, published a large, fancy illustrated album titled The Celebration of the Opening of the Monument to Pushkin in Moscow on June 6, r88o, with a Biography of A. S. Pushkin, 26 and the young journalist F. I. Bulgakov compiled some of the most essential speeches, toasts, telegrams, and so forth from the celebration, which was published anonymously in r88o as A Wreath for Pushkin's Monument. 27 Furthermore, the Alexandrine Lycee, which had initiated the subscription for the moment, published a guide to the literature on the celebration which the indefatigable bibliographer V. I. Mezhov had compiled. This, The Opening of the Monument to A. S. Pushkin in Moscow in r88o: Articles and Other Works Written about the Celebration, was published in Petersburg in r885, and contains over a thousand entries.2B The failure of the "thaw" of r88o-r88r to bear fruit, however, and Russia's subsequent painful history largely determined the later historiographical fate of the Pushkin Celebration. The era of harsh political reaction which followed Alexander Il's assassination early in r88r rendered the high hopes and lofty words of r88o a pitiful disappointment, and the Pushkin Celebration was relegated to the status of a footnote in Russian literary and political history. The fact that time and again self-rule and free speech have failed to conquer in

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

14

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Russia and have been relegated to "the garbage heap of history" has colored the evaluation of Russian liberalism and of intelligentsia ideology in general, both by Soviet and Western historians. The predominant Soviet view, especially during the Stalin era, when the literary holiday and adulation of Pushkin reached truly incredible proportions, has been to belittle the 188o celebration as a classbound holiday of the liberal Russian intelligentsia (as opposed to Soviet celebrations that represent "the masses"); more recent attitudes are considered in the Conclusion. Like the nineteenth-century radicals, orthodox Marxist-Leninists do not accept the idea of a possible "reconciliation" of social, cultural, political, and class interests which the Pushkin Celebration promoted. Furthermore, the Soviets have in general consistently disparaged the achievements of the prerevolutionary intelligentsia or claimed them as their own; and this includes the popularizing of Pushkin and the struggle for the humanistic values represented by a great literature.29 At the same time, Soviet scholars have narrowly emphasized the intelligentsia's struggle against autocracy, downplaying or ignoring the atmosphere of crisis and self-doubt in which Russian literature was born. In the West the Pushkin Celebration has been remembered, if at all, only as the occasion for Dostoevsky's idiosyncratic "Pushkin Speech" or as the time Turgenev snubbed Katkov by publicly refusing to drink with him.3o Until recently, Western historians have also ignored or denigrated the strength and intellectual viability of Russian liberalism, and stressed the intelligentsia's narrowly political, oppositionist character. The problem has mostly hinged on the question why Russian liberalism failed. As Marc Raeff asked in 1959: "Was liberalism really a viable alternative to revolution, and if so, why did it display so little resistance to both reactionary and radical pressures?" Raeff argued that it was "not until 1905 that the truly objective conditions for liberalism were created."31 In the years since Raeff posed his question, there has been a significant amount of scholarly attention to the problem of defining Russian "liberalism" and to demonstrating its significance as "a potent force" in nineteenth-century Russia. 32 The Pushkin Celebration presents additional evidence about the existence and viability of the "liberal" option in Russian cultural life, and provides new insight into the long-standing problem of defining the intelligentsia's corporate historical consciousness.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF 1880

15

Without question, the intelligentsia's political disenfranchisement and lack of a secure social and economic base played a crucial role in its development. Because of its forced exclusion from Russia's "real circle of life," intelligentsia theorists often set their sights on finding ultimate, universal Truth and tended to elevate either the antistatist position (of the Nihilists) or the antilegalist position (of the Populists) into an absolute. Yet to categorize the intelligentsia, as historians have often done, as by definition either exclusively opposed to the regime or to political rights is to confuse causes with symptoms.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Public Validation of Russian Intellectual Life For many at the time, the Pushkin Celebration promised that the Russian intelligentsia had finally come into its own. Newspapers referred to the Pushkin Celebration as "Holiday of the Intelligentsia" and "Celebration of Russian Public Opinion," an event that signaled the intelligentsia's legitimacy and its readiness to serve as a "middle" class, intermediary between state and nation. The reforms of the sixties had both acknowledged and encouraged the existence and development of such an intermediary class, and the history of the Pushkin Celebration may be seen as an attempt to translate the reforms into an acceptable political and cultural ideology. As such, the Pushkin Celebration offers surprising insight into the intelligentsia's long search for intellectual and political selfhood. To many, the celebration represented a public acknowledgment of the intelligentsia's very existence. The celebration seemed like a dream come true, an ecstatic, intoxicating "moral miracle," a "spiritual electrification" during which, as one participant put it, people lived "completely, with every fiber of the inner '1,'" a special, supreme moment of vindication and self-fulfillment. As the Russkii kur' er editorialized, In the life of every society there are moments that reflect more or less completely its inner content, those spiritual interests by which it lives, the hopes and dreams on which it sets its sights. That which during the usual course of events is muffled by the sound of everyday cares and needs or obscured by the latest news, in such moments is spoken out for all to hear, loudly and distinctly. That which is usually

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

6

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

expressed weakly or hesitatingly, and which evades the attention of the observer, now comes to the surface and takes, so to speak, visible and perceptible outlines. [Such moments may happen in any society], but they have special significance where society lacks the possibility of expressing its thoughts .... Here more than anywhere else one should not ignore such moments, because they represent the longed-for signs of the times. It is according to them that one should judge the true public mood; on their basis should one make one's reckonings for the future. Otherwise the wisest, most perspicacious student of politics could easily fall into error and mistake the clamorous voice of some sui generis patriot or of some calculating operator who knows on which side his bread is buttered for the expression of public opinion. The Pushkin days in Moscow were precisely such a moment. 33

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

It was a moment, the writer continued, when Russian society had

proven itself "mature, strong, and healthy," a rebuttal to those like Katkov who had asserted that "educated society was full of destructive elements, in the process of dissolution and on the eve of complete bankruptcy." The immediate political significance of the celebration, as one paper expressed it at the time, was to highlight the clash "between the defenders and enemies of self-government and the free expression of opinions ... Between them, in essence, there can be no compromise."34 The successful organization of the literary holiday, many argued, proved the intelligentsia's capability and its right to act as moral and spiritual leader of the nation. Furthermore, the Pushkin Celebration demonstrated Russian society's "unsilenceable need ... to act in concert for the sake of a common goal, so that social forces slumbering or mute will finally have the possibility to manifest themselves for the good of the country."35 It held out the promise of having healed the schism between state and nation and of reconciling the painful long-standing divisions within Russian society. It revealed that the intelligentsia's most deeply felt aspiration was to act as an independent yet publicly acknowledged contributor to society, and demonstrated that democracy was inevitable for a country with a "national poet" and a great literature. As if in answer to Carlyle, the leading liberal paper Colas editorialized: "Considering the state's powerful, thousand-year-old supremacy over society, during the more or less grievous moments in our history, it could often seem (especially to a foreigner) that in the all-absorbing forms of the state, of the officialdom and the bureaucracy, that there is no soul, no

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION: THE PUSHKIN CELEBRATION OF 1880

17

independent society, as in Asiatic states. It was this very soul that loudly and irresistibly proclaimed its existence at the celebration. " 36 The march of events soon overshadowed what in retrospect seemed like only so much wishful thinking. However, taken as an event emblematic of the period as a whole, the Pushkin Celebration did mark a major watershed in Russian history, although certainly not in the way contemporaries imagined. In retrospect, it brought the Emancipation era and the hope for reform from above to a close, and marked the beginning of the end for the old regime. With the deaths of Dostoevsky (in r88r) and Turgenev (in r883) and Tolstoy's renunciation of literature in favor of theology, it signaled the end of a brilliant literary epoch, and heralded the start of a new age of literacy and mass culture, based in large part on the Russian classics, an age of greater complexity and diversity on the intellectual scene.37 Its most lasting legacy perhaps was the new sense of Russian national identity, which ever since has been intimately connected with Pushkin. Pushkin-and along with him the classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature-came to offer a new, secular, "cultural rather than political or religious identity/' independent of both tsar and church, the traditional focuses of Russian self-image.3s Finally, the Pushkin Celebration provided the intelligentsia with a new concrete sense of its own corporate identity. According to an anonymous feuilletonist in Galas, the most widely read paper of the day, the celebration "appeared right on time" and certified "in an urgent and universally comprehensible way the strength and firmness of the Russian intelligentsia."39 It confirmed, wrote Mikhnevich, that the "intelligentsia" was not merely an abstract notion debated on the pages of the thick journals, but a real living force: "Our intelligentsia, which gathered together from all ends of Russia for this celebration, became conscious of itself here as if for the first time, saw itself in flesh and blood, and understood that it exists in actuality as a real, living organism, and [realized] what it needs. " 40 If nothing else, the Pushkin Celebration demonstrated in a most dramatic way that the Russian intelligentsia, and the great literature that had inspired it, did indeed exist. As for the future, the public opinion the intelligentsia represented had become (in the words of Galas) "such [a force] that those who wish for peaceful social development may find support in it, and such that its enemies must reckon with it"-or face the consequences.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

The Debate Is Formulated: The Question of a Monument to Pushkin, 1837-1866

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin's Death and the Campaign to Suppress Public Reaction The idea of erecting a monument to Alexander Pushkin arose the very day after his death. For Zhukovsky and Pushkin's coterie of fellow writers and supporters, there was no doubt that his tragic end, in a duel, at age thirty-seven, was, as Denis Davydov put it, "une calamite publique." 1 Zhukovsky intervened with Nicholas I to protect the interests of Pushkin's family and persuaded the tsar to assume all his debts, provide for the widow and children, and publish a posthumous complete edition of his works for their benefit. But even before his other requests, Zhukovsky suggested a monument, somewhat clumsily playing upon Nicholas's vanity: "Pushkin always used to say that he would like to be buried in the village where if I am not mistaken he lived in his childhood, where his ancestors are buried .... Is it not possible that this, the will of the deceased, be united with the good of his bereaved family, and his orphaned children be given a reliable shelter near their father's grave, and at the same time a moving, national monument to the poet be erected-for which all Russia, after having lost him, will feel grateful to its magnanimous builder?"2 Nicholas did ransom Mikhailovskoe, Pushkin's family estate, and consented to the greater part of Zhukovsky's proposals, but he refused either to issue a proclamation about Pushkin's great services to the fatherland or to erect the "national monument" that Zhukovsky hoped "would be worthy of [Russia's] first poet and her sovereign." These were signs of recognition that Nich-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

19

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

olas had rendered to Karamzin after his death in 1826, but for the tsar, Zhukovsky's parallel was not persuasive. "You see that I am doing all that I can for Pushkin and his family," he told Zhukovsky, "and I am agreeable to everything, but cannot agree with you only on one thing-that you write proclamations like those for Karamzin. There is a difference: you see how we were hardly able to bring him [Pushkin) to a Christian death; but Karamzin died like an angel." 3 But it was not only Pushkin's "unchristian" action in fighting a duel (which contravened civil and ecclesiastical law) that motivated the tsar's refusal to honor the poet. Neither Nicholas nor his chief of gendarmes Count Benkendorf, who had deeply mistrusted Pushkin and probably even conspired to let the duel take place, could ever forget Pushkin's early notoriety as a freethinker (for which he had been exiled to the south) and his close personal connections with the Decembrists. They actually seemed to believe that Pushkin had headed an underground organization that might take advantage of the public turnout for his funeral to spark a new uprising, and became frightened at the huge crowds (estimated at between twenty and fifty thousand) that were gathering outside the dying poet's home on January 28-29. Two anonymous letters sent to Zhukovsky and Count Orlov, which demanded that Nicholas take strong and immediate action against Pushkin's killer, d'Anthes, and his protector, Baron Heeckeren, and which called for a state funeral for the poet, as well as many rumors of public reprisals against Pushkin's enemies, further alarmed Nicholas.4 On his orders Benkendorf launched a systematic campaign to suppress any public outcry. As Benkendorf explained afterward in a report on police activities for 18 37, there was a remarkable congregation of mourners around his [Pushkin's] body; there was a move to give him a state burial; many people planned to follow the convoy to his place of burial in the province of Pskov; in Pskov, some are known to have attempted to unhamess the horses and pull the wagon themselves .... It was difficult to decide whether these gestures were intended to honor Pushkin the liberal or Pushkin the poet. In this uncertainty, and taking into consideration the view of many right-minded people that there was a danger that this so-called popular expression of the grief of the crowd upon the poet's death might develop into a deplorable spectacle of triumph for the liberals, the executive office considered itself bound to adopt secret measures to suppress all horrors. This was done. 5

Pushkin's funeral, scheduled to take place in St. Isaac's, was moved without announcement to the smaller, out-of-the-way Koniushen-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

20

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

naia church despite the fact that invitations to St. Isaac's had already been distributed. On the morning of the funeral the tsar mustered sixty thousand troops, ostensibly for a surprise inspection, but as one Soviet researcher has suggested, perhaps in case of a possible uprising.6 At midnight January 3I an entire detachment of police came and took Pushkin's body from his apartment to the church to avoid the crowds that had gathered there during the day.? Benkendorf closed the funeral to the public, and Pushkin's old enemy, Minister of Education Sergei Uvarov, strictly forbade professors and students from the university to attend. On the night after the funeral, February 3, Pushkin's body was spirited out of the city under police escort, and Benkendorf sent strict orders ahead to the governor of Pskov to prevent any unusual expressions of grief or disturbances in his jurisdiction.s The poet was buried at the Sviatogorsk monastery near Mikhailovskoe, with none of his family and only a handful of friends present. Benkendorf and Uvarov, whose ministry controlled the censorship, also moved to suppress all other forms of public reaction. Portraits of the poet which had been printed to mourn his passing were collected and burned; a new production of Pushkin's "The Covetous Knight" was banned; and any mention in print of how Pushkin died or of the funeral and the circumstances surrounding it was strictly forbidden.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin's Funeral as a Historical Issue Pushkin's death and funeral (or lack of one)-were but one episode in a long chain of events that contributed to the poet's subsequent tortuous and muddled public image. Lack of public discussion of his death left the very complicated questions of Pushkin's literary and political heritage unresolved. During the last years of his life, the critics had been announcing Pushkin's "fall" as a writer. This had as much to do with the fact that Nicholas served as his personal censor through Count Benkendorf-which led to some of Pushkin's finest works remaining unpublished until after his death-as with the critics' inability to appreciate the new artistic directions Pushkin was taking. Pushkin's political position was also left in doubt. His patriotic verses of the early thirties and his equivocal position at court (owing in large part to his wife's active social life there) obscured his lifelong commitment to the "liberal" ideals of his youth

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

2I

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

and to the moral and legal independence of Russian letters. 9 Furthermore, Pushkin's alleged "aristocratism" and ambivalence about being a writer (maintained by S. E. Raich in the early I84os and given wide circulation in the next decade by Konstantin Polevoi and Annenkov) also helped to compromise the poet in the eyes of the rising generation of raznochintsy, or declasse intellectuals. The regime's enmity toward Pushkin during the last years of his life and after his death were long overshadowed by Nicholas's generosity to the poet's bereaved family. But by I88o the real state of affairs was beginning to come to light. Letters from Pushkin's friend Prince Peter Viazemsky to Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich expressing indignation about police interference in the funeral appeared in Russkii arkhiv in I879, and Russkaia starina exposed the "official" attitude toward Pushkin as expressed in a reprimand to Pushkin's colleague Andrei Kraevsky. After Pushkin's death, Kraevsky had dared to publish a short, moving encomium to the poet (beginning "Pushkin! The sun of our days has set ... ") in the literary supplement to the official newspaper Russkii invalid, which he then edited. 1D Uvarov had become extremely upset and had Petersburg's head censor Prince M. Dundukov-Korsakov issue him a stern reprimand; at the same time Uvarov gave orders to prevent similar occurrences in Moscow.u Dundukov-Korsakov's reprimand to Kraevsky, which was widely quoted in the newspapers in I88o, had asked: Why this publication about Pushkin? How could you put a black border around an announcement of the death of a man who had no rank and who occupied no position at all in state service? Well, never mind that-but such words! "The sun of our poetry"!! For pity's sake, why such honor? "Pushkin died ... in the midst of his great calling"! What kind of calling? Sergei Semenovich (Uvarov] noted specifically: was he a commander, a military leader, a minister, a statesman? He died before he was forty. Sergei Semenovich pointed out that to scribble verses [pisat' stishki] does not constitute a great calling. The minister has instructed me to admonish you severely and to remind you that as an official of the Ministry of Education you must refrain from such e££usions. 12

These and other documents helped intensify the perception of the Pushkin Celebration as a long-awaited triumph of public opinion, and as a debt to Pushkin that Russian society was at long last ready to repay. They also contributed to Pushkin's image in I 88o as the "father of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

22

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Russian liberalism," a man fighting for political independence and a victim of the state's suppression of public opinion.I3 Many journalists pointed to the frightening similarity between the Russia that had destroyed Pushkin and the Russia of r88o. But rather than blame Nicholas or tsarism exclusively for Pushkin's death, in r88o many ascribed Pushkin's tragedy to the lack of civic responsibility and public opinion in Russia, which Pushkin himself had deplored.I4 Celebrating Pushkin meant both the repayment of a long overdue debt and the recognition of society's right and obligation to repay it. V. la. Stoiunin's major biography of the poet, which was serialized during I88o in Iuridicheskii vestnik, argued that Pushkin had mistaken

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

the critics' slander and high society's coldness for the voice of the people .... Pushkin did not notice that the spirit of that public which earlier had valued him had been suppressed, if not smothered, and that [although] a new public with Bulgarin and Co. at its head had anpeared, a new generation of lovers of his poetry had arisen to take the place of that earlier generation. These people still had no voice but brought themselves up on Pushkin's "sweet sounds and prayers," even amidst the barrackslike atmosphere. This was the youth that had already graduated secondary school, talented natures whom dull teachers had not succeeded in repressing. They memorized the best works of our poet in secret.... Pushkin never knew this public, but it was here that the Russian people's love for him was preserved. 15

Pushkin's tragedy (as Strakhov had argued earlier)1 6 resulted from the immaturity and weakness of the Russian public. But that public had grown up; the youth of 1837-Annenkov, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Stoiunin, and their generation-would now at last give Pushkin the tribute he deserved. The revelations about Pushkin's struggle with the censors and the secret police also bolstered the arguments of those fighting for a free press around 188o. The new documents helped transform Pushkin's image. In the sixties, the radicals had dismissed the poet as a frivolous lightweight, a politically suspect aesthete who was compromised by his attachment to the court; now Pushkin came to be seen as an "honest, thinking journalist" who was "unconditionally independent in respect to politics." 17 Annenkov's article "A. S. Pushkin's Social Ideals," published in Vestnik Evropy at the time of the Pushkin Celebration, offered biographical proofs that Pushkin was a 11 liberal," fighting for (as Annenkov put it) "greater rights and freedom

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

23

for his country, within the bounds of legality and [Russian] political practice."l8 At the time of the celebration, one journalist writing in Molva voiced the hope that Pushkin would become Russia's "new Moses," who could give "some indication at least of that promised land which Russia should finally enter after such grievous wanderings in the arid and fruitless desert."l9

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin's Posthumous "Works" and the Monument Metaphor Although Nicholas I rejected Zhukovsky's proposal for a monument, the government-sponsored edition of Pushkin's works went ahead. For several years the critics had been proclaiming Pushkin's "fall" and the public's coldness to him, but the tremendous, spontaneous outpouring of grief at his death demonstrated such a widespread sympathy for him that the state-appointed trustees of his estate optimistically raised the press run of the posthumous edition from ten to thirteen thousand copies. 20 Eight volumes came out in 1838, and an additional three, containing previously unpublished works, in 1841. The project, however, turned into one of the most famous failures in Russian publishing, despite the advantage of having the state bureaucracy publicize and sell the work. 21 The slapdash editing, incompleteness, irregular sizes, and unattractiveness of the volumes, together with a relatively high price all contributed to the miscarriage; moreover, during the years the edition was on sale the entire publishing industry was experiencing a serious depression, due both to a shrinking market resulting from widespread crop failures and to the overproduction of books which followed the boom of the mid-thirties. 22 By November 1838 only seven thousand copies had been sold, and only just over half the hoped-for money raised. In 1845 the series was being advertised in the newspapers at less than a third the original price (which was still too expensive for Varvara Dobroselova, heroine of Dostoevsky's first novel Poor Folk of r846, who, after bargaining down a vellum set by 25 percent, still had to borrow the last few rubles to buy it). The 1838-r84I edition did, however, raise again the question of Pushkin's national importance. The idea of a monument reappeared as a metaphor in writings about Pushkin. In 1846 Pushkin's most influential critic, Vissarion Belinsky, concluded his cycle of eleven

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

24

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

articles on the poet-which comprised an entire history of modern Russian literature-with criticism of the new edition and a prophesy that "the time will come when he [Pushkin] will be considered a classic poet in Russia, and people will be educated and develop not only their aesthetic but also their moralfeelings on his creations ... Of course, the time will come when posterity will raise unto him an everlasting monument [vozdvignet emu vekovechnyi pamiatnik], but what is so peculiar for us contemporaries is that we still lack a proper edition of his works." 23 Belinsky here paraphrases Pushkin's r836 poem "I have erected a monument to myself ... " ("Ia pamiatnik se be vozdvig ... "), which had been published for the first time in the posthumous works, somewhat deformed by Zhukovsky to pass the censors.2 4 The poem, several lines of which were engraved on the pedestal of the Pushkin monument in r88o, and which today every Soviet schoolchild knows by heart, had a great impact on the way Russians understood Pushkin's importance. The poem goes (in unrhymed prose translation): Exegi monumentum. I have erected a monument to myself not built by hands, The people's path to it will not be overgrown, Its unbowed head rising higher Than Alexander's column.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

No, not all of me will die-my soul in cherished lyre Will outlive my dust and escape decayAnd I will be famed as long as in this sublunar world Even a single poet will be alive. Word of me will reach throughout all great Rus', And every tongue existing in her will call my nameBoth Slavs' proud grandson, and Finn, and now wild Tungus, and Kalmyk, friend of the steppes. And long will I be dear to the narod, Because I wakened kind feelings with my lyre, Because in my cruel age I lauded freedom And summoned mercy for the fallen. To God's command, 0 muse, be obedient, Fearing not insult, nor demanding a crown; Praise and libel accept with indifference, And do not try to argue with a fooJ.2 5

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

25

This is not the place for a full analysis of the poem, which has been the object of much discussion, or for its reception history. 26 Nevertheless, a few observations are in order, insofar as this poem became in a sense the basic "text" for the Pushkin Celebration of r88o, and indeed for all later Pushkin anniversaries, Russian and Soviet. The leading Soviet literary scholar M. P. Alekseev, who wrote an entire monograph on the poem, noted the overwhelming consensus among Russians that the poem represents Pushkin's "testament," an assessment of both his life's work and his reputation.27 The poem progresses from a broad abstract perspective to the immediate and concrete. At the start of the poem, which is in high, declamatory style, the poet announces that his soul, in his works, is immortal, superior to monuments erected by earthly tsars; on the "sublunar" earth, his fame is guaranteed as long as one poet, one good reader, lives. The poet's repute will someday reach the many peoples of the Russian empire. Further, as the poet's perspective still narrows, in the penultimate stanza he addresses his own, the Russian folk, the narod, which values him for his love of freedom, and in the last, most humble, intimate, and "religious" stanza, he addresses his muse and seeks the courage to carry on despite all.2 8 The poem, popularly known as "Monument" ("Pamiatnik") at various times has provided useful justification for a variety of ideological and cultural positions, including the social imperative of art and of Pushkin's oeuvre; numerous interpretations of Pushkin's politics, especially his relation to Alexander I and to the Decembrists; the russification-or merely the acculturization-of the peoples of the empire; and the Westernizing of the Russian narod itself via Pushkin and high-brow literature. The poem had tremendous appeal to later generations, in part because it expressed so well for them the poignancy of Pushkin's position as an unappreciated hero addressing posterity. The image of the monument also helped make the rather abstract world of letters concrete for illiterate listeners or newly literate readers of the poem, and turn Pushkin-and his actual monument-into the icon of a new, secularized, national culture.29 From the late eighteenth century, equating monuments and writing had become an ingrained way of thinking about literature in Russia. Horace's famous ode on which Pushkin's poem is based had long been a favorite of Russian poets, and early Russian critics often employed the classical commonplace of literature as a pantheon or

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

26

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

temple filled with monuments to great writers. Belinsky also pictured the task of the critic in these terms. For example, he praised the Romantic critics who "dared to speak the truth" about the eighteenth-century Russian poets Sumarokov, Kheraskov, and Petrov and threw "these idols of clay" down off their pedestals. They were "idols of clay" because they "fell to pieces at the first touch. Indeed clay is not bronze or marble!"30 Belinsky clearly conceived of criticism as establishing more lasting literary "idols" of marble and bronze-like (he supposed) Pushkin.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin and the Debate over Public Opinion in the 186os Belinsky did more than any other critic to establish Pushkin as Russia's national poet, yet he had seemed to consign the poet to the past as a writer irrelevant to the social concerns of the day. 31 Belinsky's ambivalent message-his assertion of Pushkin's authoritative position as national poet, on the one hand, and his negation of Pushkin's social "content," on the other-to a large extent shaped the various factions in the notorious debate over Pushkin in the sixties, which was also explicitly a battle over Belinsky's critical legacy and prestige. While a complete history of the complex debate of the sixties would take us beyond the scope of this book, the monument metaphor provides a convenient perspective on it, as an image that both came to characterize key positions in the debate and dramatized the problematic function of literary criticism as surrogate for political debate. 32 While contemporaries in 188o and many subsequent critics have seen the Pushkin Celebration as "an answer" to radicalism, and specifically to Pisarev's attempt "to dethrone" Pushkin, it was the social critics themselves who had specifically framed the debate about Pushkin as a struggle over public opinion. It was they who created the ideational context that lent the actual erection of a monument in 188o its powerful symbolism as a rejection of radical tactics and a vindication of public opinion. The critical war over Pushkin started when Pavel Annenkov's new edition of Pushkin's works began to appear in I 8 5 s. The social, utilitarian critics, led by N. G. Chernyshevsky, cited the authority of Belinsky in declaring the superiority of the "Gogolian," "satirical" school over the "Pushkinian." The usually restrained critic Alex-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

27

ander Druzhinin, on the other hand, responded to the new edition by exalting Pushkin as the ideal of a true artist. He referred to Annenkov's work as "the first monument from posterity to the great writer" and likened the veneration he felt for Pushkin to that of a worshiper bowing down before a marble image. He wrote that with the appearance of the latest edition of "Pushkin's Works" ... the curtain which obscured the posthumous bust of the poet falls away forever. Before us stands not the limp creation of an empty fantasy of light but severe marble that depicts the true features of the one on whom we pride ourselves! We approach the cool, eternal marble with reverence .... There they are, the true features of the artist, there his gaze, his pose-here is his true and not hypocritical depiction! We see that before us is a true poet, and we bow our heads, weeping again and again over his ashes! 3 ·3

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The undisguised idolatry in Druzhinin's article, which seemed to directly espouse "art for art's sake," together with his vigorous denigration of "Gogolian" literature, made Pushkin an inviting target. To the radicals, the holier-than-thou attitude of Druzhinin and other of Pushkin's proponents sounded a note of received, despotic authority that threatened responsible opinion-making and free speech itself. When Stepan Dudyshkin, critic at Otechestvennye zapiski, was accused of "spitting on Pushkin's grave" for denying that he was a "national poet," Iurii Volkov focused the issue precisely on the problem of creating a new "thinking" public opinion: Why take away our right to sympathize or not to sympathize, why cramp our freedom of opinion with such a sharp condemnation? The [only true] court is the sum of all opinions, and whatever we say, the majority will always come out on top. And this top, this victory will be just, if it truly represents public opinion, composed of truly personal, individual opinions, and not just routine [ideas], taken on faith from other people out of weakness or laziness or a reassuring dependence on authorities ... Why call whatever opinion about his [Pushkin's] works that has been freely expressed spitting on the writer's gravet Why appropriate certain names-however sonorous and renowned they may be-and make myrrh and incense the only and obligatory thing? 34

Because of the constraints on free speech, the social critics exploited literary criticism as a convenient surrogate for political discussion. They pictured the literary (i.e., the political) scene as a battleground between the old literature and the new, and considered

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

28

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

the "old literature"-the literature of aristocrats like Pushkin-"an unaffordable luxury" that distracted readers from more pressing matters. One such critic bade farewell to the old literature, that "universal friend everyone cherishes, that dear old gramps who used to treat everyone to candies in pretty little wrappers." Now literature had to have friends or enemies; the old literature, "a luxury of spiritual life" and "superfluity of education," must give way to a literature of utility; the old "baby" reader become a "reader-critic." Because of this movement, argued this critic, "the reader's thinking has been liberated from the oppression of print, from the power it despotically seized for itself; today's movement [in the name] of the reader has arisen. The reader, a person of his own opinions, is now the judge. He believes in his own convictions, and is not the slave of someone else's. In him now is the promise of independent development-and from this, from such development only, [can come] every possible boon, every possible utility."35 After the liberation of the serfs in r86r, the issue of the educated classes' responsibility toward the people-a central problem throughout Russian intellectual history-became especially acute as the political situation became increasingly polarized. The radicals felt that the emancipation reforms had been a capitulation to the landowners at the expense of the people, and looked upon it as their duty to create a socially conscious, independent public that would be able to fight and defend itself. Pisarev took this line of thinking to an extreme, and with remarkable success, in his all-out campaign against Pushkin and aesthetics in r 86 5. 36 The "reading public" became a thinly disguised euphemism for "public opinion," and Pisarev's "destruction of aesthetics" and "dethroning Pushkin" a call to rebellion against imposed authority. In perhaps the most outrageous act of iconoclasm in literary history, Pisarev declared Pushkin's masterpiece Eugene Onegin "nothing but a brilliant and sparkling apotheosis of a most joyless and senseless status quo," and extrapolated Belinsky's assertion of Pushkin's lack of content into a brilliantly argued negation of frivolous and socially pernicious aestheticism. However we interpret the reasons for Pisarev's success, his verdict on Pushkin remained in force, in the words of D. D. Blagoi, "for an entire decade and a half [as] the last and definitive word about Pushkin and his works." 37 Dethroning Pushkin was a kind of shock treatment for the public, an attempt to make it wake it up and reexamine its values. It wasn't

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

29

merely that Pushkin was to fall, but that the new "thinking man" who put reason and utility above outdated authority would serve as a charismatic role model for others. There might even have been present an element of purposeful, Machiavellian "misleading" of the public for its own good.38 Pisarev's basic nihilist doctrine, that "what can be destroyed, should be; that which survives the blow is fit to remain; that which falls to pieces is trash," relieves the critic of the ultimate responsibility for his attacks. Should Pushkin fall, that was what he deserved; should the public let him survive, at least it would be a self-conscious and critical decision. On such terms, Pisarev could never be wrong. Pisarev, however, implicitly argued his right to speak in the name of "the majority" of Russians, who, he asserted, "have either failed to read Pushkin" and other accepted literary authorities, "or have done so once in observance of a certain ritual, after which they put them aside or almost forget them." From here it was but a short step to the argument that the public had already rejected Pushkin de facto. Pisarev prefaced his famous attack on Pushkin with the suggestion that "we still haven't made up our minds to forget Pushkin, or, to put it more truthfully, we are afraid to admit to ourselves that we have already forgotten him. "39 Curiously, Pushkin was also targeted by radicals of the opposite end of the political spectrum, those who are usually referred to as "reactionary Slavophiles," but the arguments they marshaled against him were strikingly similar to Pisarev's. In 186o Victor Askochensky titled his philippic against Pushkin "Permit Us to Hold Our Own Opinions!" 40 Like Avksentii Martynov, who had written a series of anti-Pushkin articles in the early forties, Askochensky completely rejected contemporary Russian literature and denounced Pushkin from a position of extreme religious orthodoxy. To both, Pushkin and his strident admirers represented the false authority of atheistic, egotistical, and licentious European values that were-they feltcontinuing in the wake of Peter the Great to destroy the national heritage. Although the "reactionary" attacks on Pushkin were almost completely ignored by contemporaries, they form an almost exact "slavophile" analogue to Pisarev's "Westernizing" position; where Askochensky saw the false authority of the modern atheistic West, Pisarev saw the false authority of old, patriarchal Russia. Where both agreed was in their assessment of the danger of Pushkin's aestheticism.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

30

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Degeneration of Public Discourse The best literary critic of the period, Apollon Grigor'ev, who died in r864, a year before Pisarev's attack on Pushkin, had tried unsuccessfully to challenge the hegemony of Chemyshevsky's utilitarian literary doctrines with his own "organic aesthetics." In criticism he advocated a return to Belinsky of his early romantic period, and in art the recognition of Pushkin's overarching genius; for Belinsky's "critical consciousness is just as much our consciousness as our art-is Pushkin's art." "Pushkin," he declared in a famous statement of r 8 59, "is our all. " 41 Grigor'ev's passionate defense of Pushkin as carrier of the Russian national ideal was echoed in Dostoevsky's articles of the sixties and later found its most famous expression in the novelist's Pushkin Speech of r88o, but at the time Grigor'ev's credo fell on largely deaf ears, as did the more modest attempts by Annenkov and Katkov to argue Pushkin's case by defending the civic virtues inculcated by any true art. In the sixth of his articles on Pushkin, Belinsky had defined the dual tasks of the critic as first the aesthetic appreciation of the text, and then the act of self-conscious judgment. In Belinsky's later works, and for most critics of the sixties, these two functionswhich in English and in Russian combine in the one word "criticism"-radically diverged and clashed. Social criticism, culminating in Chemyshevsky's disciple N. A. Dobroliubov and in Pisarev, denied the independent value of the literary text and of the aesthetic experience, arrogating the right to make critical judgments to themselves; criticism took precedence over art. Its opponents, on the other hand, struggled to vindicate the authority of literature and to define the positive "content" of aesthetic "form"-variously as civic virtue (for Annenkov and Katkov), national genius (Grigor'ev), or as the autonomous good of art for art's sake (Druzhinin, B. N. Almazov). Nowhere was the ancient Platonic enmity between aesthetics and philosophy played out so dramatically as in Russia. Pushkin's supporters had difficulty answering attacks that were essentially political, by critics who had little understanding for or interest in literature except as the pretext for political sermonizing. Pisarev's French biographer Armand Coquart has shown how Pisarev's attack on the poet was virtually unanswerable on literary grounds, because from the start it willfully violated or suspended the most elementary ground rules of literary criticism. 42 It ignored the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

31

fundamental dividing line separating a work of literature from an author's direct political or philosophical discourse, abrogating the validity of literary conceit. The Nihilists' "Jacobin" rhetoric singlemindedly aimed at annihilating their ideological opponents and suspended all the gentlemanly rules of journalistic etiquettei it implied irreconcilable hostility and made the give-and-take of opinions impossible. Pushkin sympathizers bemoaned "the excessive, almost exclusive development of the polemical element in our literature," and challenged the way Belinsky's followers the social critics had taken upon themselves the role of "nanny or governess to a public in its minority." 43 In attempting to "educate" the public, they fell into the very authoritarian mode they would have destroyed. The "polemical element," it was argued, again demonstrated that Russian letters remained in "an infantile state," in its "intellectual minority"i the attacks on Pushkin revealed all of its "boorishness" and "ignorance."44 "In no other area has the unfortunate direction of ... our contemporary literature been expressed with such fullness and clarity as in judgments about Pushkin," 45 concluded another commentator in r86r. With the triumph of Pushkin in r88o such arguments would be reversed and Russian cultural maturity proclaimed. Other defenders of Pushkin laid the ultimate blame for the unhealthy course of the debate on Russia's abnormal political and intellectual climate. Given the lack of free and fair argument and of a strong public opinion itself, Russian thinkers were wont to take theories to extremes. As one commentator put it, "We still do not have under our feet the firm soil on which thought can work originally. Literary organs of opinion have never appeared before literature's full independence .... [We are forced to work! outside the real circle of life, and act not so much on society's practical concerns as on its theoretical upbringing." 46 Several of Pushkin's defenders specifically attributed the growth of nihilism and the notoriety the attacks on Pushkin had gained to the lack of free speech in Russia. Were free speech permitted, they maintained, the radical "aberration" would be exposed for the folly it was and its influence would quickly dwindle. So argued Mikhail Longinov in his rebuttal of Pisarev in r866. Should complete freedom of the press be declared, Longinov asserted, "then its [radical Petersburg journalism's! credit will fall completely, credit supported now by the way in which he who needs to can merely allude to public opinion, and can defend himself by pleading [that he has its supportj-as if [true public opin-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

32

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

ion] were expressed in that notorious sort of periodical. Since they haven't yet 'had their full say,' they haven't yet been disgraced in the proper fashion." 47 The argument suggests that the censorship, contrary to its intent, was playing into the radicals' hands, serving as a kind of screen from behind which they could carry out their attacks with impunity. As I have suggested, the nihilist attack on Pushkin developed at least in part as an indirect protest against censorship; in this sense, the "polemical element" obscured the common detestation of censorship that united both pro- and anti-Pushkin camps, and locked both sides into a vicious circle within which no real communication was possible. For both, a central part of the problem lay not so much in each other (or even in their respective opinions about Pushkin) as in the abnormal state of affairs in Russia which the lack of free speech created or fostered. 48 To Pushkin's proponents, however, the existence of the censorship did not in any way justify attacks on the poet, which appeared to them as a dishonest ploy to gain subscribers and notoriety, a "succes du scandale." They denied the social critics the right to appropriate public opinion to themselves. As one anonymous writer insisted, despite "The Crusade of Our Leading Journals against Pushkin" (as he titled his article), Pushkin remained a hero to most Russians. He cried: "No, Pushkin is loved in Russia, as only a figure of the past* almost a quarter of a century after his death can be loved ... Where then is the coldness [to Pushkin]? Is our public really colder to Pushkin than the German public is to Goethe or the English to Byron? But how can we express our love for the poet? With monuments and jubilees, is that it? But after all, even the monument to Moliere wasn't erected the very moment after his death, and Schiller's jubilee was only celebrated on the hundredth anniversary of his birth." 49 The idea of a monument came to mind almost naturally as a direct and public way to show respect and love for Pushkin. Even before the Pushkin debate had become full blown, the writer Nadezhda Sokhanskaia (pseudonym Kokhanovskaia) made a dramatic call for a monument, in an article written in 1857 (and published in 1859) titled "A Flower from the Steppe for Pushkin's Grave." Like Gogol, Druzhinin, Apollon Grigor'ev, and others, Sokhanskaia cherished a passionate cult of Pushkin, and centered all her hope for the salva*otzhivshyi: outmoded; but in the context not pejorative.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

33

tion of Russian culture on him. In her article, Sokhanskaia championed Pushkin as "a fiery prophet," a hero-poet (in Carlyle's sense) and as a personal religious guide in life. She lamented that Pushkin has no monument!. .. The twenty-first year since the fateful day on which our first great poet died has arrived, and what have we done for his memory? Nothing. Will the twenty-fifth year, that accepted time when government and society usually recognize and confirm with medals the services of those who have certified themselves in the calling of state service or the public good, will that twenty-fifth anniversary of Pushkin's really pass, and, to our shame, our society's gratitude not be expressed at all by the grave of the great poet? Does this thought [of a beautiful marble monument] truly not budge our hearts, and will it just come and go, as so many things come and go ... Oh, how shameful for us! Yes, we will be shamed-before our very selves, and before the people of the great future who will follow after, and who, strong in the power of beneficent discrimination, will sit in judgment upon us! 50

As this impassioned plea suggests, even before the subscription for a monument to Pushkin was opened, the question of publicly acknowledging Pushkin had assumed not only political but great philosophical and even metaphysical proportions.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Monuments and fubilees in Russia "How can we express our love for the poet? With monuments and jubilees, is that it?" Indeed, as Kokhanovskaia made clear in her demand for a monument, it had long been customary in Russia to honor or memorialize important state and military leaders with "jubilee" celebrations, and sometimes with monuments. Since the mid-eighteenth century the state had put up statues to tsars, national heroes, and generals, often to mark famous victories or great moments in the nation's history. Such were Falconet's famous monument to Peter the Great (1782), the monument to Minin and Pozharsky (1818), those to generals Kutuzov and Barclay de Tally (1837), to Nicholas I (1859), and the one to Admiral Kruzenstem (1874)-all but the second located in Petersburg. Their unveilings were often celebrated with great pomp and at times were arranged so as to convey a political message. 5 1 The state also sponsored frequent celebrations to mark milestone imperial birthdays, dynastic events,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

34

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

major battles or treaties, and jubilee commemorations of popular tsars. 52 Celebrating jubilees and anniversaries had also become the custom at the universities and other institutions of higher learning (probably a transplant from Germany); not only prominent professors but major dates in the life of the institution were feted. The jubilee tradition spread to scholarly and other kinds of societies, as well as to academies, gymnasiums, schools, and, as time went on, to more and more varied state and private institutions (factories, newspapers, departments, theaters, etc.). It also became common in literary circles to hold celebratory dinners to mark the fiftieth anniversary of a writer's literary activity. During the thirties and forties, Uvarov, who had helped to suppress horrors for Pushkin at his death, saw to it that literary commemorations be held strictly within the bounds of state protocol. 53 In 1844, when Uvarov took over the arrangement of Krylov's funeral, the writer Nikolai Grech responded with the following epigram:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Foe of Pushkin, friend of von der Fure Is burying Russian literature. Krylov's ashes he will peddle And on his coffin place a medal. Please God we soon see the day We deal with him the very same way. Monuments to writers were a rare phenomenon, and were also largely state affairs. Six monuments were erected before Pushkin's. All of them went up in out-of-the-way locations, in the writers' birthplaces-in Arkhangel'sk (M. V. Lomonosov), Kazan' (G. R. Derzhavin), Voronezh (A. V. Kol'tsov), Simbirsk (N. M. Karamzin), Porech'e (Zhukovsky); the monument to Krylov was in his home town, St. Petersburg, but in the Summer Garden, which-some arguedlimited its visibility and significance. The monuments to Lomonosov, Krylov, and Zhukovsky had been funded-as Pushkin's was to be-by "universal" (povsemestnyi, i.e., not merely local) subscriptions, approved by the tsar and carried out through the Ministry of Education, but the money for them came mostly from the imperial family, the court, rich relatives of the writers, and from the local gentry.s4 Their unveilings were strictly local affairs, which apparently was state policy. The well-known historian and editor Mikhail Pogodin recalled how in 1845 Uvarov had prevented attempts to widen the scope and importance of the opening of the monument to

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

35

Karamzin. When Uvarov refused to send Pogodin as a delegate to the unveiling, Pogodin went anyway, as a private citizen. "I don't remember why," he recalled. "A surprising thing. Not one of the higher educational establishments [which were all under Uvarov's control] thought to take part. It was as if the government wanted to open the monument in silence. Fine approval for the author."SS The Lomonosov and Karamzin jubilees-the centennials of Lomonosov's death and Karamzin's birth-occurred in r865 and r866. The first was a big in-house event for Moscow University, which Lomonosov founded, and for the Academy of Sciences, where he had worked, with dinners, public meetings, church services, speeches, lectures, and festschriften.s6 The Karamzin jubilee was on a more limited scale, again despite Pogodin's efforts to enlarge it. Although some conservative papers tried halfheartedly to use the Karamzin jubilee to drum up support for Russia's Polish policy, Colas reported that "the whole holiday was contained within the walls of the university, and, apart from the speeches made at the ceremonies and at the dinner, you certainly won't be able to wring anything [of significance] out of it."S7

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Second Attempt at a Monument Eighteen years after Pushkin's death and Zhukovsky's request to the tsar for a national monument, and just at the time that the Pushkin debate was getting fired up in the press, a second and equally unsuccessful attempt was made to initiate a monument. A petition was drawn up in an office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, apparently by its first signer, the collegiate assessor Vasilii Poznansky, and signed by eighty-two people, almost all middle-ranking counselors, secretaries, assessors, and registrars. It read as follows: Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin indisputably counts as one of the most valorous figures of our fatherland. The monuments already raised to Lomonosov, Karamzin, and Krylov bear witness that we Russians, like all cultured peoples, are grateful for the fruitful services of our great writers; in relation to the greatest genius from among our poets, however, to one who by his marvelous songs has aroused so many beautiful emotions and strivings in his countrymen and done so much for the Russian word, this gratitude has not yet found external expression: there has been no monument to Pushkin! In these words is heard a reproach to the Russian people; they recall an unpaid debt of thanks

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

36

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

of which we have long been conscious both in print and by word of mouth, a debt that has remained unfulfilled for the sole reason that between word and deed the main obstacle is the first step. Since no one has decided on this difficult step, why may this enviable honor not fall to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that same Foreign Collegium in whose ranks was once listed the precious name of our great poet? 58 Animated by such thoughts, the functionaries of the Ministry flatter themselves with the hope that their enlightened Head, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, as a man jealous for the glory of the fatherland, and as classmate of the universally beloved poet at the Lycee, will favor the desire of his admirers with his gracious attention and will not refuse to champion our cause before our gracious MONARCH and gain permission to open a universal subscription in Russia for the erection in St. Petersburg of a monument to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. We may boldly assert that this reply will gain the sympathy of all Russia, and those serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would consider themselves happy to fill up the first pages of the subscription with their names. The petition, preserved in the Central State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow, bears a note at the bottom dated 1899: "I presented this memorandum to Prince Gorchakov in r 8 55 through an intermediary, Egor Petrovich Kovalevsky, but His Excellency declined to take part in this matter. V. Poznansky."S9 The petition recalls Sokhanskaia's passionate words written two years later about the nation's "unfulfilled debt of thanks" to Pushkin which casts "reproach" on the Russian people, and it refers directly to other voices in the press who were calling for a monument. Such a petition could not have come at a more inopportune time or through a less promising channel-the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the Crimean War debacle. Politics may also have intervened; the new liberal minister of education E. P. Kovalevsky was probably not on the best of terms with the conservative Gorchakov. Perhaps Gorchakov did not wish to trouble the ailing tsar Nicholas, who died early in r855 after a nervous breakdown. More likely, the petition was intended for the new tsar Alexander 11. But as the postscript makes clear, the petition never made it to either. 60 Boris Meilakh has questioned whether Gorchakov, who was Pushkin's classmate at the Lycee and addressee of many heartfelt lines from the poet, was truly his close friend, as scholars have assumed. Meilakh asserts that "of all the Lyceeists Gorchakov was the most alien, the most diametrically opposed to Pushkin": Gorchakov at the top of the class, its "golden boy" headed for a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

37

Pushkin hardly the diligent student and disdainful of state service. 61 However we interpret their relationship, Gorchakov was later conspicuously absent from the preparations for, and participation in, the Pushkin Celebration. He was not one of those who initiated the subscription in r86o, neither did he join the special commission created in 1870 to see the project through to completion, nor, finally, did he attend the monument's opening in r88o, pleading illness. 62

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The "Pushkin Lycee" Starts a Subscription The "honor" of starting up the subscription did, in fact, fall to other Lycee graduates. Certainly they thought they had good reason to promote the cause of Pushkin-which, indeed, they often equated with the cause of the Lycee itself. The Lycee of Pushkin's school days was a unique institution, initially planned as a school for Alexander I's two younger brothers. 63 The school offered an encyclopedic and humanistic curriculum on an extremely high academic level. In fact, according to its charter, drawn up by the tsar's famous ministerreformer Mikhail Speransky, among others, the Lycee had the same rights and privileges as Russian universities, even though its students were of gymnasium age. The express aim of the school was to prepare its students for high state service, as Alexander 11 declared in r86r, "to create worthy administrators for all branches of the state." Its students, noted D. Kobeko in his discussion of the early Lycee, "having become the instruments of supreme power, [were expected] to become the voices of public opinion as well and advocates of the people before the person of the monarch. "64 During the last years of Alexander's reign, the Lycee lost its exclusive position and elite academic status; the exiling of Pushkin in I 820 and the recall of V. K. Kiukhel'beker from abroad in 1821 coincided with, and very probably contributed to, a major reorganization of the Lycee. Its director, E. A. Engelhardt, and several faculty members were dismissed, and its humanistic curriculum and methodology were largely curtailed. In 1822 the Lycee's administration was transferred from the educational ministry to the military, and after 1826 Nicholas I applied new repressive measures to the school, which had become associated in his mind with freethinking and Decembrism.6s On October 19, r86r, the Lycee celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding in 1811. It was no longer the "Tsarskoe Selo Lycee" of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

38

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin's day but the "Alexandrine Lycee," having been moved from Tsarskoe Selo to Petersburg in 1843. In 186o twenty Lycee graduates representing eighteen classes (plus one alumnus from the Lycee's "pension") gathered to prepare for the anniversary celebration. From them came the initiative for a monument to Pushkin. They passed the idea along to the Lycee's director, N.l. Miller, who in turn took the question to Peter Georgievich, prince of Oldenburg. The prince was the newly confirmed head of the recently created Fourth Section, replacement for the Department of Empress Maria, into whose care the Lycee had been transferred upon its move to Petersburg, and he had been trustee (popechitel') of the Lycee since that time.6 6 Friend and cousin of Alexander 11, he was also an influential leader of the conservative faction in the government that opposed the reform movement. 67 As head of the Fourth Section, he could play an important role in promoting the Lycee, and the monument. The r861 anniversary committee requested permission to open a "universal" subscription for a monument to the poet that would be "worthy of his national fame, in a place where His Highness [the prince of Oldenburg] will be pleased to indicate." The prince set the matter before Alexander 11, adding that the tsar should "entrust the compilation of projects and the erecting of the monument itself to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, taking the lead from other examples [of monuments], and execute it in agreement with the Ministry of Education, the Academy of Arts, and the Main Administration of Roads Communications and Public Buildings." 68 The proposal, couched in such unthreatening terms, easily met with the approval of the tsar, who wrote on it: "Agreed, and place the monument in Tsarskoe Selo, in the former Lycee Garden"-an appropriate, if hardly very public, site for it.

The Monument Drive Part of the voluminous correspondence concerning the subscription for a Pushkin monument in the sixties survives, and allows us roughly to trace the subscription's progress. On December r8, 186o, the minister of internal affairs, S. S. Lanskoi, sent out a circular to the various government ministries announcing the subscription, and by the time of the Lycee's jubilee of October 19, r86I, the mechanics of the subscription were well under way. A month earlier, Lanskoi had

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

39

informed the Ministry of Finance of the tsar's decision and had begun to set up a mechanism for processing donations. Money was to be collected by regional (uezd) treasuries and passed along to the main provincial treasuries, which would, in turn, pass the money along to the central treasury in Petersburg; in March it was determined that the money be transferred from there to the newly created State Bank to earn interest. 69 As in the case of the posthumous edition of Pushkin's works of 1838-1841, what were essentially private interests utilized the tsarist bureaucratic apparatus to attain their goals because of the weakness of independent commercial or other institutional networks. That the initiative proceeded from the private sector came to have great significance in 188o, when the organizers of the Pushkin Celebration and the newspapers argued that public opinion had finally found a genuine outlet, insofar as official institutions had acted "as independent public entities," as true instruments and representatives of popular will. 7o The official church was hesitant to take an active part in the subscription, but did agree "to announce [it] in the Ecclesiastical Department via printings in the spiritual journal and in the diocesan gazettes" so that contributions might go to the proper place. There is evidence, however, that in at least one case the collection for the monument did reach the lowest levels of the church hierarchy. In the province of Nizhnii Novgorod, a bishop of the provincial consistory learned of the Ministry of Internal Affairs circular and sent it out to the various ecclesiastical institutions in the regions under his aegis. The meager response he received revealed another instance of the grim poverty of Russia's rural clergy of the time. The priest of the village of Adasev, one Ioann Kolosev, reported that "because of the poverty of their condition, the churchmen are unable to donate. "71 But from more than eighty tiny hamlets, from priests, deacons, sacristans, and sextons, money trickled in, in donations of as little as 2, 5, 7, and 10 kopecks. On December 7, 1861, Kolosev deposited a total of 13 rubles, 84 1/2 kopecks with the provincial treasurer of the Nizhnii Novgorod eparchy. The Ministry of Finance recorded donations from all over the empireJ2 Money came in that had been collected by the Warsaw customs department (108 rubles, r6 kopecks); the Main Administration of Roads, Communications, and Public Buildings (13 r., 86 k.); Astrakhan factories (2 74 r., 2>/4 k.); the Zabaikal and Iakutsk regional governing boards, and the Military Administration of the Don Forces

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

40

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

(36 r., 8o k.); by "inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland" (108 r., ro'/2 k.); by the Nerchinsk Mining Administration (23 r., 383/4 k.); the Military Government of the Maritime Region of Eastern Siberia (36 r., 8o k.); the chief quartermaster for the troops of the Orenburg Territory (ro rubles); and by provincial committees, schools, soldiers, administrators, and even the censors. Ministry of Finance records include monthly accountings from the various provincial treasuries which paint a fairly clear picture of the course of the subscription there. In its first three months over 2,ooo rubles were raised, and in the next three months that figure almost doubled. Between July r86r and July r862, twenty or more provinces were sending in their monthly donations. Of the total amount collected, recorded on November r6, r868, as 13,541 rubles, more than 55 percent came from the province of St. Petersburg, center for the whole projectJ3

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Subscription Peters Out The subscription's opening had been quietly announced in the papers in January r86r and elicited a small but generally positive response. Five and a half years later, the feuilletonist of the Peterburgskii listok asked his readers if they could recall when the subscription had opened, in r86o or r86r, and added that "we would all like to know: in what state is the question of the monument now?" He subsequently answered his own "quiz" on August 6, r 866, reporting that only fourteen out of a necessary eighty thousand rubles had been raised. Since r863, he had learned, "the collection has hardly increased, since no one even knows where subscriptions are accepted ... In a matter like this that concerns the whole reading public, publicity and accessibility for the subscription are indispensable; without them it will hardly reach the desired size." 74 Although donations via government treasuries continued to be recorded through fall r863, by that time the subscription had for all intents and purposes died out. The problem seemed to be that although the Lycee's fiftieth anniversary committee had gotten the project started, it had outlived its purpose after the Lycee's celebration and had ceased to exist as a body; the subscription continued, as it were, on its own inertia. When the subscription was finally revived many years later, in spring

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE DEBATE IS FORMULATED

4I

r87r, the well-known conservative educator Mikhail de Pule complained in S. Peterburgskie vedomosti that "the subscription ceased precisely because an incomprehensible silence [about it] was preserved, that lasted eleven years ... A more negligent attitude toward the matter-which is surely one of the greatest popularity-a greater disregard for the public on the part of the organizers can hardly be imagined." 75 It is hard to escape the conclusion that the escalating radicalism in Russian society, together with the "crusade against Pushkin" which was raging precisely at this time, also helped kill enthusiasm for the monument drive. Public attention was absorbed by the revolutionaries' challenge to the state. By r866, the year that saw Karakozov's assassination attempt against the tsar, and which marked the end of the sixties' "thaw," interest in the project had completely lapsed, on the part both of its organizers and, seemingly, of the public. The lackadaisical organization of the drive extended to the Academy of Arts, where there was a minor scandal over the question of who would sculpt the monument. As soon as the circular announcing the subscription had been published, several professors at the academy had begun to plan models for a monument, with the prince of Oldenburg's encouragement, and there were even several presentations of projects to the tsar.7 6 But since no official competition with exact specifications had been declared, there was quite a bit of dissatisfaction from both artists and the academy. At the end of January r862 the tsar specifically called for a competition so that the matter could proceed aboveboard; but a few days later, upon the prince of Oldenburg's intercession, he awarded the commission to Professors Bakhman and Lavretsky. Unlike the highly publicized competitions to create a Pushkin monument in the seventies, the question now elicited almost no public reaction, and even after the tsar had made his decision, Prince Gagarin, vice-president of the Academy of Arts, declared the entire discussion premature "because of the lack of information about the means available to erect the monument to Pushkin." In r866, even though the tsar had "definitely" awarded Lavretsky the commission to create the monument according to Bakhman's plan, the two men, in light of the fact that so little money had been raised and that "it would hardly be possible to count on the subscription's going more successfully in the future," asked to be paid back for their numerous outlays. On April r, r866, the prince of Oldenburg paid them a total of 1,900 rubles out of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

42

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Fourth Section funds, with the stipulation that they renounce all claim to do the monument should it be erected in the future. 77 He also ordered that "the Ministry of Internal Affairs be communicated with concerning the renewal of invitations to donate to the monument to Pushkin." Nothing was done. It looked like a dead end for the whole project.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

2

Those Who Kept the Light Burning: Working toward a Monument, r869-188o The gradual decline and halt of the subscription in the late r86os coincided with Pisarev's "dethroning" of Pushkin and seemed to confirm the radicals' harsh verdict against him. The cause of Pushkin was kept alive, however, by several literary associations which took as their conscious aim to preserve "Pushkinian" traditions in Russian literature and to defend those literary and social values which the Nihilists were trying to destroy.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin and the "Lycee Cult"

In r869 a small group of Lycee alumni led by the brothers Konstantin and Iakov Grot undertook to salvage the subscription for a monument to Pushkin. Its failure, they insisted, had resulted "from the lack of timely instructions for [its] spread and support" and certainly "not from the public's cooling toward the memory of the most popular of Russian poets .... Pushkin's significance is acknowledged by everybody, and his right to a monument so unquestionable that there is nothing to add to what has been said." 1 The Grots stepped in, as they expressed it, so that "the contributions that have already been made can be put to the use for which they were designated, and so that the matter that was planned won't be a complete and utter failure." 2 The Grot brothers more than anyone else were responsible for creating and perpetuating the famous "Lycee cult [litseiskii kul't]," so named by Iakov Grot himsel£.3 Since r86o they had organized

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

44

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

yearly reunions of the combined fifth, sixth, and seventh classes (which had been graduated from the Lycee in r829, 1832, and 1835).4 The former schoolmates would gather at one of Petersburg's better restaurants for dinner, drinks, and an evening of "radiant and melancholy memories of passed youth and old times" spent at the Lycee.s Iakov Grot, professor of literature at the Lycee from r8 53 to r862 and the leading expert on "Pushkin's Lycee," would read the group his articles about Pushkin and the Lycee as well as letters, poems, and other documents from the Lycee archive he was compiling.6 No reunion passed without someone declaiming Pushkin's verses dedicated to the Lycee and to the Lycee reunions of his day. "The Nineteenth of October" (r 82 5 ), which Iakov Grot himself had published, was an especial favorite. 7 In the poem, Pushkin addresses his far-flung classmates from his exile at Mikhailovskoe:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

My friends, how splendid is our union! Like the soul, eternal and unbreakable, Free, secure, unshakable, It grew, our friendly muses in communion. Wherever fate may have thrown us, Wherever luck may have had us go, We remain the same; outsiders to the worldCitizens of Tsarskoe Selo. 8

The minutes of the r868 reunion acknowledge that it was Pushkin's Lycee poems themselves that inspired and shaped the reunions: "Turning to a reading of 'The Nineteenth of October,' as was the general desire, the [permanent] secretary [K. Grot] addressed his listeners' attention beforehand to Pushkin's significance in the history of the Lycee gatherings, which would hardly have assumed a firm existence and their present character without his poetic word .... The reading ... met with everyone's fervent sympathy and was often interrupted by loud expressions of it." In his Lycee poems, Pushkin contrasts the halcyon days at the Lycee to the unhappy present-to his own exile, and later to the sad fate of his Decembrist classmates.9 In the poem cited above, for example, the poet surprises his classmates by summoning them to drink a toast to Alexander I and to forgive him his "unjust persecution [nepravoe gonen' e]" because, after all, it was he who "took Paris and founded our Lycee." Notably, these lines were deleted from Grot's published version of the poem,w and in general, for the Grots and their fifteen-odd classmates the reunions held a far different

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

45

political significance from what they had for Pushkin. Konstantin Grot's protocols of the meetings make them seem at times like a platform from which the loyal and self-satisfied "fathers" of the thirties could excoriate the politically disobedient new generation of "sons." The get-togethers often smacked of an English "old boys" club. For F. N. Annensky, sixth class, a special officer in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for example, the Lycee represented a bastion of conservative values. The Lycee, he began, addressing the company in r865, represents enlightenment, progress, and "useful development," which are good things; however,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

unfortunately, together with new scientific truths and new elements of civic and economic life, which reflect beneficially on our government and on our people's life, new moral principles have in part been introduced which threaten the future generation with complete demoralization: unbelief, the emancipation of women, infringement upon and destruction of the principle of the family, and the denial of everything beautiful, sublime, holy .... Could we, honoring the traditions of our own, the original Lycee, sympathize with such grievous and disgraceful fruits of the latest civilization? No, comrades! ... We will remain for all time, as we have been until now, stubborn and inexorable old believers in our religious and moral convictions. (Note the subtle paraphrase of Pushkin's poem quoted above. The "original Lycee," it should also be noted, does not refer to Pushkin's Lycee but to that stronghold of official nationality of the later twenties and thirties.) 11 Several years later, at the reunion of 1872, Iakov Grot gave his own interpretation of the Lycee "idea," which was also a kind of sentimentalized and anachronistic reading of Pushkin's Lycee verses: "Despite the fact that so few of us remain, that the very Lycee of Tsarskoe Selo is no more, the nineteenth of October is still celebrated in the old way .... What does this idea [of the Lycee] consist of? Honor and nobility in all relations and affairs, love for all that is beautiful-for art, and especially for poetry, respect for science [nauka] and labor, for moral worth, and, finally, comradeship in the very best sense of the word-such were the outstanding features of the Lycee, within whose walls we spent our youth."

The Subscription Revived and Revised It was natural for this group, for whom "Pushkin" and the "Lycee" stood for all they hoped to preserve in Russia, and a bulwark against

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

46

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

radicalism, to take up the cause of a monument.l2 It should be noted, however, that such a rose-tinted view of the Lycee and its traditions was far from universal. By the late thirties and forties a rift had been growing among Lycee students, between the conservative "aristocrats" headed for jobs in the tsarist bureaucracy, such as Count Dmitrii Tolstoy of the thirteenth class, future minister of education and ober-procurator of the Holy Synod-and those like his classmate Mikhail Saltykov (pseudonym Shchedrin), future satirist and critic of tsarism, who associated with the new social and intellectual movement headed by Belinsky and Granovsky.13 During the early forties, Saltykov, along with many of his fellow students, fell under the influence of his elder classmate Mikhail Butashevich-Petrashevsky, who was arrested in r849 along with Dostoevsky and others for spreading utopian socialist propaganda. Although Saltykov, who had come to the Lycee on government subsidy, did take part in Lycee reunions through the sixties, and possibly beyond, he objected to the "aristocratic" nature of the Lycee cult. 14 He was later to be highly skeptical about the Pushkin Celebration of r88o as well. At the reunion of October 19, r869, Konstantin Grot put forward a proposal "to renew the question of a monument to Pushkin, and with that aim to appoint a committee of Messrs. Shtorkh, Kornilov, Kavelin, K. Grot, and la. Grot." 15 This informal committee addressed itself directly to the prince of Oldenburg "so that the matter would be carried out under his general supervision and with His Excellency's help.''l6 On April 7, r87r, the tsar approved a slightly modified committee under the prince of Oldenburg's nominal presidency, which consisted of Pushkin's classmates Admiral F. F. Matiushkin (who had served on the Lycee anniversary committee) and Baron M. A. Korf, plus the Grot brothers, A. I. Kolemin, F. D. Kornilov, and N. A. Shtorkh; Gorchakov, as we will recall, declined membership. Matiushkin died in r872, Korf in r876, and Shtorkh in r878, and a new member, M. N. Pokhvinsev, later joined the group.l7 First of all, the committee reviewed its strategy. Because "the very success of the subscription is conditioned by the choice of the most fitting place for the monument," the committee reasoned, the Lycee garden might not be the best place for it. There it would be "out of the center of general traffic," they agreed, and the monument "would not fully correspond to the idea of its national and public significance." Matiushkin suggested Moscow. The others agreed, reasoning that Petersburg already had so many monuments, and Moscow so few-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

47

and no statues of literary heroes at all. There may also have been an element of anti-Petersburg sentiment involved. Furthermore, they argued, "Moscow is Pushkin's birthplace, and owing to the significance of his works for the whole Russian world, a monument to him placed in that city would in all probability attract the most sympathy, and a subscription presented in this way attract the most donations."lS The tsar approved the change on March 20, r87r, and on June r6, r872, he further sanctioned the choice of the end ofTverskoi Boulevard opposite the Strastnoi monastery as the place for the monument,19 on a street, noted P. I. Miller, "that has the same preeminent significance for Moscow as Nevsky Prospect has for Petersburg."20 A committee of city representatives and well-known Muscovites active in literary affairs (including Ivan Aksakov, Pogodin, Iurii Samarin, and Katkov) had chosen the spot, and the Moscow city duma approved the allocation of almost sixty-five square meters at the end of the boulevard as a small square for the monument. In r 88o the newspaper Russkii kur' er declared that the choice of Moscow for the statue and its prominent placement on Tverskoi Boulevard heralded a new era in public monuments. The monument to Pushkin, it said, "stands out from those more or less banal monuments, ordinarily put up by the state bureaucracy, with which the squares of Petersburg and Berlin are decorated by the dozen, depicting (often in the compulsory Roman toga) various military types .... The place [for peaceful heroes of the word] is not where they have usually hidden away the statues of those few Russian writers who were worthy of monuments-not in gardens, or in the inner courtyards of state buildings."21 When the new Imperially Established Committee for Erecting a Monument to Pushkin declared its existence, it presented the question of where to put the monument-in Moscow or Petersburg-as an open one, and suggested it be aired in the press. But since there was little reaction, the plans for Moscow went ahead. 22

The Decline of Pushkin and of Literary Criticism The renewed subscription drive also provoked little if any response in the press, and it seemed that the "Pushkin question" had been settled for good, and not in Pushkin's favor. But from time to time, Pushkin's advocates let it be known that they had not disappeared.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

48

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Some rather lamely tried to raise interest in the monument by suggesting it as a rallying point for the cause of panslavism, which became a popular issue in the late sixties and seventies.23 Others continued to hold Pushkin up as their model for Russian literature. Katkov's increasingly conservative journal Russkii vestnik decried a state of affairs in which the radical journals were at dead odds with the best in Russian literature, and bemoaned the desuetude of genuine literary criticism: "Our tendentious press has been able to surround this question with every kind of lie, against which our reading masses have no other weapons besides the common sense and the aesthetic feelings they have preserved. We should have gone back to Pushkin to find the real course of that literary stream which the public discerns only by groping, and which alone has the right to the critics' attention." 24 When Annenkov's biography of Pushkin was reprinted in r873, Nikolai Strakhov, who had despaired over Russia's spiritual health in the late sixties for its treatment of Pushkin, assured his readers of Pushkin's eventual triumph: From out of all the ordeals, from out of all the upsets of opinion and our various trials, from out the fog that congeals over our past with time, the image of the poet emerges invulnerable, not only undimmed, but shining forth even brighter. ... Many years will pass, and nevertheless a future liberal rhetorician, proving casually that all past Russian literature was composed of ignorance and savage lusts, will stumble with secret bitterness before the image of the poet, whose unconquered beauty has remained just as irresistible as it ever was .... The understanding of Pushkin is in great decline in our time. One cannot say that the subscription for the monument has gone very brilliantly or quickly. Our journals, apart from a few weighty words from Moskovskie vedomosti, 25 greeted the matter with dead silence. They didn't find this grounds enough for talking about Pushkin, didn't think it possible to make of it even the most minute contemporary question, worth turning the attention of their readers away from more important subjects, if even for a minute. 26

A year later Strakhov continued to insist that the "magical action" of Pushkin's name had not ceased, but "continues to this day, and is even growing deeper" and stronger. 27

"A Truly Popular Undertaking" In his "Historical Sketch of the Erecting of the Monument to Pushkin" read before the assembled delegates to the Pushkin Cele-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

49

bration on June 5, 188o, Iakov Grot declared that the newly formed committee had "placed at the basis for its actions two fundamental principles: publicity and strict accountability [glasnost' i stroguiu otchetnost']."2B A few days after the committee's confirmation by the tsar, they sent out an announcement to the main Petersburg and Moscow papers and to a few journals. The subscription, it read, had raised I?, I I4 rubles to date (I8,254 including interest). Further, they announced that S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, Golos, Vestnik Evropy, and Russkaia starina in Petersburg and Moskovskie vedomosti, Sovremennye izvestiia, Russkii arkhiv, and Russkaia letopis' in Moscow all agreed to help collect money, and that several prominent booksellers-Bazunov, Glazunov, Kozhanchikov, and Pushkin's current publisher, Isaakov-were accepting donations as well. In order to assure "strict accountability," and to get the subscription going again, the committee printed up booklets in which donations could be recorded. Shtorkh, who had recently been promoted to the post of main assistant to the prince of Oldenburg in the Fourth Section, revived the subscription in the bureaucracy, sending out hundreds of booklets.29 A substantial number of them went out through the Ministry of Education, with the cooperation of Lycee graduate and minister of education Count Dmitrii Tolstoy, who had served on the I86I anniversary committee. Donations were again processed through the Ministry of Finance's official network, or sent directly to the Fourth Section. This time the subscription advanced steadily. The committee reported in November I87I that in the eight months after the subscription had been reopened over I0,375 rubles-more than half the money that had been raised in the previous decade-had been collected.30 Golos, Vestnik Evropy, Russkaia starina, and other publications listed hundreds upon hundreds of contributors by name. They included school officials, government bureaucrats of all ranks, soldiers, literary men, members of the imperial family, provincial societies and committees of all kinds, governors and customs workers, and their donations ranged from a few rubles to several hundred. The subscription grew at a rate of three or four thousand rubles a month. By January I, I872, the new subscription had surpassed the I8,254ruble mark reached in the sixties, and by the end of its first full year the new subscription had netted 31,414 rubles, 91 kopecks, bringing the total to just below 5o,ooo rubles. Donations did not taper off, and by January I873 the total climbed to over yo,ooo rubles-and the end was in sight. 31 The final amount raised by the subscription, which

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

50

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Grot announced before the assembled delegates to the Pushkin Celebration in 188o, reached 83,922 rubles, 61 kopecks, plus over 22,ooo rubles in interest that had accrued over the course of the twenty-year project-for a grand total of 106,575 rubles, 10 kopecks. It had been, he concluded, "a truly popular undertaking, which was achieved by private initiative, with no admixture at all of a bureaucratic or departmental character, without supplementary funding from state coffers, and with a significant sum saved over besides."32 The process of selecting a new model for the monument dragged on for over three years and contributed to the many delays that had continued to slow the project since its inception. The competition for a statue of Pushkin occasioned much discussion in the press involving leading artists and art critics.33 The arguments hinged in part on what truly "national" sculpture should be and reflected the struggle against the still prevalent neoclassical school, which would have liked to see the statue and pedestal heavily adorned with allegorical figures from Pushkin's life and works (as, for example, Krylov's monument had been). In part seven of Anna Karenina, Levin criticizes M. M. Antokolsky's allegorized model for the Pushkin monument as exemplifying the false "Wagnerian tendency" in modern art. An eight-month limit for the preparation of models was set in 1872, but at the exhibit in March 1873, only five of six prizes were awarded because none of the fifteen projects displayed was deemed satisfactory. A year later, nineteen more models-the results of a second competition-were shown, again publicly, but again no winner emerged. The judges then asked two finalists, P. P. Zabello and A. M. Opekushin, to continue work on their models, and after still a third competition, Opekushin's now famous meditating Pushkin was chosen the winner. All work on the monument was to be done by Russians: the statue to be cast in St. Petersburg, its pedestal designed by the architect I. S. Bogomolov, and the whole ensemble erected under supervision of the contractor A. A. Barinov. Opekushin's statue marked the establishment of a "national," realistic tradition in Russian monumental sculpture, and became a prototype for many later Russian (and Soviet) monuments. 34 Konstantin Grot finally announced the recall of all subscription booklets in March 1878, by which time work on Opekushin's statue was well under way. The Ministry of Education was somewhat embarrassed to report that only one district had fully completed the subscription and that more than a third of the booklets were still

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

5I

missing (although a certain number probably had been sent directly to the Fourth Section). When in April 1878 the director of the Alexandrine gymnasium of the Smolensk zemstvo in Viazma, N. A. Zaks, replied to an inquiry from the district center that donations for this object did not come in," he received the following cold rebuttal (which clearly undercuts Grot's assertion that the subscription was completely free of any "bureaucratic or departmental character"): "Not allowing for the possibility that the memory of our national poet of genius has been neglected by the employees and students of the Viazma gymnasium, and supposing that the gymnasium's previous administration simply forgot about the subscription booklet, I have the honor of returning it to you, gracious sir, humbly begging you to suggest to those willing from among the employees and students of the gymnasium in your care to make contributions that are within their ability, if even of the most humble proportions, toward the monument to Pushkin."35 (They managed to scrape together twenty-four rubles by June 8.) Other delinquent booklet-holders also found themselves in an uncomfortable position; apologies were returned along with some donations. Many offices had lost track of the booklets in the seven years that had elapsed. Officials in the province of Tver admitted that they didn't know what had become of their last booklet-it might have been lost in the paperwork or have perished in a fire. 36 The fate of several other booklets remains unknown as well. The main inspector of schools in eastern Siberia, where communication was hard and employee turnover great, reported that one booklet Was received by former civil inspector of the Irkutsk District Popov, but where it is located now, and whether money was collected with it, isn't apparent, and the possibility of searching it out following Popov's death does not present itself." And another booklet "was received by former civil inspector of the Kirensk District Krivoshapkin; after him came the present civil inspector, whom for all our efforts we are unable to locate; but the booklet was not turned in; Krivoshapkin himself died."37 11

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

11

-Or a Pathetic fake!

This was suitable material for satire-and indeed Saltykov, who shared the radicals' skepticism about Pushkin (and later, about the Pushkin Celebration), ridiculed the subscription. Saltykov's journal

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

52

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Otechestvennye zapiski reported with great irony that in 1876 agents of the police gathering money for various causes had also managed to procure five and ten kopecks at a time for the Pushkin monument. "Altogether," they commented, "a district police officer collecting donations ... among peasants and merchants who haven't the slightest notion about Pushkin is the kind of comedy you will hardly meet anywhere except the Russian state. "38 And in chapter 20 of Saltykov's Contemporary Idyll (published r8n-r883), the merchant Onufrii Petrovich Paramonov presents his "biography," consisting of a list of yearly bribes and other outlays he has been forced to make. Among them he includes a miserly donation for Pushkin's monument:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

In r863 a general called on me, and I treated him to tea. Given for a mutually useful arrangement............................... 25,000 r[ubles]. In 1864 I loaned to the above-mentioned general for the purchase of an estate...................................................................... 6,200 r. In r865, for a miraculous deliverance.......................... 3o,ooo r. In the same year a German prinze [sic] arrived, had tea with us, and I loaned him................................................ 6,200 r. 62 k[opecks]. To his adjutant .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 3,ooo r. To all the others .... .. .. .. .. .. .. ...... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... .. .. .. .... ...... 3,200 r. In 1866, on the occasion of the freedom of bookprinting....... so r. In 1866, on subjects in giniral [sic]................................ s,ooo r. In 1870, to the ward supervisor for the universities............ 6oo r. In 1871, to the same for the spreading of healthy ideas..... r,ooo r. In 1872, to the same for a monument to Pushkin............. 15 k. 39

Saltykov remained clearly unimpressed either by the number of contributors or by the quality of their dedication to Pushkin. Bringing the project to completion continued to be plagued by other problems and delays. At first, the date for the unveiling of Pushkin's monument was set for Lycee reunion day, October 19, 1879, but although the statue itself was ready in time, its pedestal was not. The opening was then rescheduled for Pushkin's birthday, May 25, r88o, which was felt to be a more appropriate date than either the Lycee anniversary day or the day of the poet's death. As May approached, however, some commentators began to fret that the event would pass unnoticed and uncelebrated. Sovremennye izvestiia editorialized on April 3, r88o: "We tarried in bringing this up, in the expectation that the initiative [for a celebration] would come from those institutions connected in the closest way to the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

53

proposed festivities, like the university, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, the Society of Playwrights, finally, even the [city] duma. But time is passing, and we have not heard about any preparations at all for the upcoming celebration. We fear lest it be limited to official routine alone." That, it continued, would be "a sin and a shame." The paper's publisher-editors F. P. Giliarov and N. P. Giliarov-Platonov were themselves members of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (the Obshchestvo Liubitelei Rossiiskoi Slovesnosti, which I will henceforth refer to as the society or the OLRS), which had directly and indirectly aided in the matter of the monument all along. Shortly after the editorial appeared, the president of the OLRS, Sergei Iur'ev, contacted Iakov Grot-himself a member of the society for over twenty years-so that the OLRS would "take into its hands" the organization of the Pushkin Celebration. 4 0

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The OLRS and the Movement for Free Speech in the Sixties The OLRS played a curious, marginal role in Russian literary life during several different epochs, and before its great triumph in r88o it had tried, not very successfully, to provide a working institutional basis for Russian literature. Founded in the same year as the Lycee at Tsarskoe Selo, in r8rr, as a literary and scholarly society to serve Moscow University and the literary community as a whole, it played a significant role in the debates over the Russian literary language raging at the time. 41 Like the Lycee and many private associations, it had come under attack after the Decembrist revolt, although it could hardly have been charged with freethinking. In r829, when the society chose Pushkin as a member, he declined to take part because they had selected him together with the unsavory Faddei Bulgarin, of later dubious fame as Pushkin's plagiarizer and calumniator. But by the mid-twenties the society had anyway already outlived itself. An outpost of the most conservative academism, it only lived on as a kind of literary fossil. It faded out of the scene slowly and fitfully some time in the early thirties, so quietly that its demise was never officially registered. That it had not been so turned out to have crucial significance. In 1856 Konstantin Aksakov and his father, the writer Sergei Aksakov (who had been a member of the OLRS since r82r, a "distinguished

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

54

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

member" from r829L initiated the society's revival. They counted on the fact that the rights the OLRS had been granted in its original charter of r8II might still be considered in force.42 That charter had given the OLRS the right to hold public meetings and to publish its works under the supervision of its own officers, and not that of the heavy-handed official censors-privileges that loomed large in the preemancipation era, especially for the Aksakovs' Slavophile circle, which had been denied the right to publish its own journal since 1852. 43 As N. P. Giliarov-Platonov, also a member of the circle at the time, put it, the Aksakovs realized that the OLRS "possessed an important right, in fact alone in all of Russia-the right to free speech." According to Giliarov-Platonov, they "reasoned that, given present conditions, the society could, if it altered its objectives, become a major organ of social consciousness, even if it were limited to the sphere of literature."44 Giliarov-Platonov explained the revival of the OLRS-which held its 103d meeting, after a twenty-four-year hiatus, in May 1858-as part of the growing public demand for a greater voice in Russia's political life. This demand, he said, had begun to manifest itself during the Crimean War, in a proliferation of large dinner gatherings at which public issues were touched upon in toasts and after-dinner speeches. Journalism was growing, he recalled, but people were not satisfied with this alone; the practice of [giving] speeches arose here [in Moscow], something they wouldn't have had time to think of in Petersburg. And for their sake-yes, for the exclusive sake of the speeches-rich dinners with hundreds of place settings were arranged. The custom had timidly asserted itself even in the former reign [of Nicholas I], having begun with celebrations in honor of the defenders of Sevastopol'. But now they were arranged on any pretext, although even then, if not timidity, then decorum never quitted the orators, who were renowned even later. 4 s

By r88o the OLRS had in fact become a specialist in organizing literary commemorations, in the form of dinners and public meetings at which speeches were read. In the years before the Pushkin Celebration it had observed-to give only a partial list-jubilees of Moscow and Petersburg universities, Schiller's centenary (I 8 59), tricentennials of the first printed book in Russia and of William Shakespeare (r864), the centennial of Lomonosov's death and the sexcentenary of Dante's birth (I 86 5 ); anniversaries marking fifty years of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

55

service to literature by F. N. Glinka (1866), 1.1. Lazhechnikov (1869), A. N. Ostrovsky (1872), P.l. Mel'nikov (pseudonym Pechersky) and F. B. Miller (1874), and A. F. Pisemsky (1875)i andpominki or memorial commemorations for A. S. Khomiakov (186o), N. I. Grech and Metropolitan Filaret (1867), V. F. Odoevsky (1869), V. I. Dal' (1873), F. I. Tiutchev (1874), A. K. Tolstoy (1875), and others. 46

The Failure of Conciliation

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

At first the OLRS leadership had made an active effort to invite literary figures of all political shades to join. On January 28, 1859, for example, they demonstratively inducted the "muckraking" novelist I. S. Selivanov into the society together with Ivan Turgenev, the newly acclaimed author Leo Tolstoy, and the Slavophile A. I. Koshelev, among others. In his acceptance speech, Tolstoy, in contrast to Selivanov, defended the independence of art, and, notably, Pushkin: In the past two years political and specifically denunciatory literature-having borrowed art's means for its own ends, and having found remarkably intelligent, honest, and talented advocates who have responded heatedly and decisively to every current issue-has captured all the attention of the public and deprived belles-lettres [khudozhestvennaia literatura] of all its significance. In the past two years I have chanced to read and hear the opinion that the times for little tales [pobasenki] and rhymes has irrevocably passed, that a time will come when Pushkin will be forgotten and won't be read any more, that pure art is impossible, that literature is only an instrument for the civic development of society, and so on .... Society knew what it was doing, continuing to sympathize only with political writing, and considering it alone as literature. This enthusiasm was a noble one, a necessary one, and even, for a while, a just one .... Society's widespread, unconscious demands for respect for literature, the rise of public opinion and, I will even say, self-rule (for which our political literature has acted as a surrogate)-these are the fruits of that noble enthusiasm. But however noble and fruitful this one-sided enthusiasm may have been, like any enthusiasm, it could not continue. The literature of a people is its full, many-sided consciousness, ... [a literature] that reflects in itself eternal, panhuman interests, the dearest, most intimate consciousness of a people, a literature accessible to any people of any time, a literature without which not one people with any strength and vitality has developed .... [The turn away from political to artistic literature is] a new proof of the power and maturity of our society and of our literature.47

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

56

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

(Tolstoy's position closely resembles Turgenev's "liberal" interpretation of Pushkin of r 88o, although by that time Tolstoy's own views on Pushkin, Russian literature, and literature for the Russian narod had all radically changed.) Significantly, in answer to Tolstoy the then president of the society, Aleksei Khomiakov, defended the need for socially conscious art. Within a short while, however, the OLRS plan to become a forum for free speech and intelligentsia reconciliation, characteristic of this period directly preceding the Emancipation-the so-called honeymoon of the intelligentsia-met with failure. First, in late January r86o the tsar personally denied the society the right to an in-house censor; the society was up in arms and almost disbanded altogether.48 Not long after that the Petersburg radicals, led by the same Selivanov who had been inducted together with Turgenev and Tolstoy, severed their ties with the OLRS. Selivanov demonstratively quit after the defeat of his proposal that the society charge for one of its usually free public meetings in order to raise money for the recently established Petersburg Society to Aid Needy Scholars and Literary Men (commonly known as the Lit Fund). 49 One of the Lit Fund's functions was to help families of writers who had been imprisoned or exiled or had otherwise suffered from conflicts with the government, and Selivanov and his supporters publicly accused the OLRS of aristocratism, social indifference, and "the spirit of Slavophilism." As time went on, latent antagonism between slow-moving Muscovite conservatism and intellectually avant-garde Petersburg Westernism increasingly asserted itself. While the OLRS took no official stand on the "Pushkin question," the society prided itself on its living ties with the Pushkin era, and in time many of its members were drawn into debate with the radicals on related issues. Many of Pushkin's friends and long-time idolizers were members of the revived OLRS, as were practically every Pushkinist, defender, and publisher of the poet: P. E. Bartenev, P. A. Annenkov, P. A. Efremov, N. N. Strakhov; the poets A. N. Maikov, la. P. Polonsky, A. A. Fet, F. I. Tiutchev; Turgenev, Katkov, Sokhanskaia; Pushkin's close friends Prince Viazemsky and Sergei Sobolevsky; Iakov Grot, and many others; and there is little doubt that Pushkin was often on their minds. A delegate to the Pushkin Celebration recalled in r88o how "in November r859, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature sent its congratulations to the centenary celebration for Schiller [in Leipzig]. The Germans responded

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT BURNING

57

that they were grateful, and wished the Russians their own Schiller. I remember how insulted we all were in Moscow (that is, we students), and how we pronounced Pushkin's name with pride." 5 0 \

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The OLRS Defense of Literary Tradition On their part, the radical satirical journals sarcastically labeled the OLRS "literary gravediggers," mocking them as hedonists and orgiasts, so that A. A. Kotliarevsky was moved in r866 to defend the society's practice of staging jubilees and commemorations as an important institution of Russian literary life. In these activities, he argued, "one should not see an empty amusement, but a serious (and we add, gratifying) phenomenon of our public life: recognition for those institutions that open new paths for historical development, grateful recollection of those who toil for the good of the peoplethese are indispensable needs for the moral life of a cultured person and of society ... I would not feel it necessary to belabor this, if I had not had the occasion to hear ironical comments that we make up for our own lack of action by commemorations of our formerly active past." 51 At the same time, the OLRS continued to defend its status as a nonpartisan institution of Russian literary life. As Mikhail Longinov asserted in I 862, implicitly criticizing the intolerance of the radicals, the society and its publications served "as an open arena for every honest opinion, every noble literary argument," where the proper respect for one's opponents was maintained.s2 Longinov, who had been instrumental in reorganizing the OLRS, was as we have seen one of the few critics who attempted to rebut Pisarev in r866. Notably, he had been drawn into the Pushkin debate in an attempt to defend the OLRS. In r86r he had helped organize a banquet to mark Prince Viazemsky's fifty years of "service to literature." The radicals responded by attacking Viazemsky as representative of the false, "aristocratic" literature of the past, and the argument soon broadened to include Pushkin (as another example of "salon" literature) as well as Belinsky. Longinov defended Viazemsky in a speech at a public session of the OLRS and in the press, setting out to show how Belinsky's failings had misled his "false followers [lzhe-ucheniki]" the radicals. They had, he asserted, assimilated not the great critic's brilliant literary

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

58

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

acumen but his worst vices-vices most clearly apparent in his work on Pushkin. Belinsky had rejected the past too categorically and ignored what went on behind the scenes; he had wrongly neglected "the familial, public, social, literary, and official" circumstances of Pushkin's life, and hence fundamentally misunderstood the drama of the great poet's last years. Belinsky-said Longinov-isolated himself within a narrow circle of like-minded thinkers and substituted theory and instinct for a true knowledge of and sympathy for literary mores. The moral is this: "Nothing will replace traditions [predaniia]-especially here, where the scope of literature's voice is so limited owing to the insufficient strength of our undermanned phalanx of writers, to the ways and habits of our society itself (which has been kept in check by circumstances, and frequently by false notions of propriety), and finally, owing to many conditions everyone knows and understands [i.e., censorship]."S3 The notion of "predaniia"-a word that combines the ideas of devotion to tradition and of passing down that tradition from one generation to the next-was a basic motivation for the activities of the OLRS and represented a literary and political sensibility diametrically opposed to that of the Nihilists. The issue of tradition and respect for literary institutions made for a natural kinship between those who had renewed the celebrations of the Lycee and those who revived the OLRS. Their ranks overlapped significantly, and the society-or, at least, many of its leading members-had helped bring the monument drive to its successful conclusion by circulating subscription booklets. Furthermore, the committee that had chosen the location for the monument in 1877 was comprised predominantly of OLRS members. So it was more than natural that the Petersburg-based Imperially Established Committee for Erecting a Monument to Pushkin would turn to the Moscow literary society to arrange for a fitting celebration of the long-awaited event. What happened in Moscow, however, took everyone by surprise.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

3

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Celebration That Organized Itself

The Pushkin Celebration chanced to occur at a pivotal moment in Russian history. It came in the midst of an uncertain truce between the tsarist state and the revolutionary movement, which had been growing in organization and purpose since the end of the RussoTurkish War in 1878. It came at a time when definite changes in Russia's political order seemed imminent and inevitable, when it seemed as if the chronic issue of political reform first raised in the r86os-which Pushkin's name indirectly recalled-would finally be resolved. During the winter of r879/8o, a renewed series of terrorist acts carried out by the People's Will had stymied the government. On the one hand the tsar was not ready to make political concessionsmeaning more rights for society and possibly some sort of representative institution-and, on the other, he became increasingly doubtful of the efficacy of repressive police measures and tighter controls over society, which merely served to alienate the intelligentsia and did not stem the violence. During the "thaw" of the spring of r88o, for perhaps the first time, the government publicly affirmed its need to seek support from the educated classes in order to effect its policies. The Pushkin Celebration coincided with this period of new optimism, when the intelligentsia's hopes for attaining a greater voice in Russian political life were at their highest. The celebration itself-as the journalist I. F. Vasilevsky put it-"invited and fostered such dreams." 1 The atmosphere of "crisis" which historians agree characterized the Russian autocracy at this period was also reflected in Russian intellectual life as a whole, as the intelligentsia, already dissatisfied

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

60

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

with populism, began to search for a more sophisticated, specifically political solution to Russia's problems. 2 Unready to embrace terror yet still mistrustful of the state's motives, the intelligentsia waited with apprehension for the outcome of the state's showdown with the revolutionaries.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Katkov's Indictment of the Intelligentsia An immediate challenge to the intelligentsia came from Mikhail Katkov, the leading conservative editor and publicist, who declared the intelligentsia's wait-and-see attitude to be treason. Katkov's outspoken accusations against the intelligentsia formed the immediate political backdrop against which the Pushkin Celebration unfolded and served to focus interest on the celebration as a vindication of the intelligentsia. Furthermore, the dissensions he provoked led to an attempt to exclude him from taking part in the celebration, an action that threatened to disrupt the event but also dramatically heightened interest in it. Even though Katkov was technically only a private journalist, he was a formidable opponent. Since the mid-sixties he had been the most consistent, intelligent, and vocal advocate of autocracy and had played a major role both as critic and initiator of government policies. Throughout the crisis of 188o, Katkov spoke for the conservative faction within the government.:'~ During the months before the Pushkin Celebration it seemed to many observers, and not without some basis, that Katkov's editorials in Moskovskie vedomosti guided government policy. Katkov responded to the repeated attempts on the life of Alexander II by urging the tsar to use all the power at his command to crush the terrorists. The appointment of six generals as local plenipotentiaries to combat terrorism and the subsequent creation of a Supreme Executive Commission headed by a single all-powerful"dictator" were measures Katkov himself had advocated in his paper.4 Hence Katkov's denunciations of the intelligentsia and the press represented a palpable threat, and liberals and radicals alike regarded him as their mortal enemy. Katkov was perhaps the most consistent and influential apologist for tsarist autocracy of his day, rejecting out of hand the idea of constitutional government as alien and unworkable in Russia. He insisted on the narod's complete support for their tsar and for Russia's foreign policy and condemned the intelligentsia

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

61

as working against the national interest. He dated its sedition to r863, when many Russian intellectuals had shown open sympathy for the Polish uprising, and he now called for a "new Muravev" (the Russian general known as "the Hangman," who had violently suppressed the rebellion in Poland) to set things straight at home. To Katkov the demands of the intelligentsia and the press for political rights contradicted the national spirit and engendered terrorism. The crisis came to a head in early February with the bomb that · Stepan Khalturin set off in the Winter Palace. Although the bomb missed the tsar, it killed eleven people and wounded fifty-six. Katkov responded with an unequivocal denunciation of the reformists: "That faintheartedness, that intellectual depravity in a certain part of our educated society, our intelligentsia, that calls itself liberalism-that's what makes such shameful phenomena possible, that's what spurs on sedition [kramola] and gives spirit and boldness to its acts .... It is time, it's long been time, to straighten out this hypocritical liberalism [obrazumit' etot fal'shivyi liberalizm] and take away its power over immature minds. It's time to drum a feeling of responsibility into these people who are chasing after rights."S

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Loris-Melikov and His Appeals to Public Opinion A week later the tsar appointed the general Count Mikhail LorisMelikov single head of the Supreme Executive Commission. While the decision to create the position may have been suggested by Katkov, Loris-Melikov proved to be insufficiently authoritarian for him. Hero of the Russo-Turkish War and most successful of the six special governors-general, Loris-Melikov rejected extralegal strongarm tactics in favor of a dual policy of recruiting public opinion for the government while improving police methods against the terrorists. That a relative liberal with popular support ascended to the position of "dictator" encourged hopes for peaceful constitutional reform and a free press. Loris-Melikov's conciliatory policies and his efforts to win the intelligentsia's support rather than dictate to it frustrated Katkov, who urged the use of force. When Loris-Melikov issued the unprecedented appeal in a public proclamation "To the Inhabitants of the Capital" that "society" support the government's battle against terrorism, Katkov objected in no uncertain terms. "The power, they say, must address itself to society, and seek support in it," Katkov argued on February 20.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

62

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

But what society? Where are those elements in the intelligentsia spheres of our society on which the government of a great power that bears responsibility for the national good and for Russia's fate could depend? Where, tell me, could such elements be uncovered? In Petersburg salons perhaps? In academia? Where is our scholarship, where are its fruits? At the present time the government can only successfully do its job by strict discipline within its own ranks from the top down. How can one think at this minute of representative government [predstavitel'stvo] as a useful thing? Is it really permissible to think of such things that are in solidarity with those vilest of plotters who are led by an enemy hand? There is no need to seek support and aid from society .... Only discipline in state ranks which will make everyone in them fear deviating from their duty and deceiving the supreme power, and patriotism in the educated spheres of society-that's what's needed, that's what we must concern ourselves with; it is necessary that we begin with discipline. 6

When the French government refused to extradite L. N. Gartman, one of those who had attempted the life of the tsar, Katkov sharpened his attacks on the intelligentsia and press, and even began to accuse Loris-Melikov of pusillanimity. He exclaimed that not only French radicals but also "more serious minds"

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

are beginning to doubt the stability of [Russia's] present state, seeing how unclear and indefinite our program for ruling is; how thick everywhere the deception that prevails; how impudently our seditious enemies [vrazheskaia kramola] put forth their demands, enemies the government can't make up its mind to fight; how the intelligentsia, while sidling up to the government, gives in to this sedition; and how the legal press trades winks with it. Nihilists accused of trying to overthrow the existing ruling order are prosecuted, while at the same time the press daily excites rumors of changes in the ruling order, and this is considered an open question. 7

Katkov denounced the "depravity" of the Russian press, which was responsible, he said, both for the spreading of revolutionary ideas and for terrorism itself. Nihilism "and all its consequences," he asserted, are "without doubt the progeny of the intelligentsia," and he charged the legal press with thinly veiled sympathy for the treasonous views expressed in the underground papers that were then growing in number and influence.s The political wind, however, continued to shift against Katkov and the conservative faction. The liberals celebrated a major victory when on April r8 Loris-Melikov dismissed the generally detested conservative minister of education, Dmitrii Tolstoy. The minister's

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

63

fall was perceived as an ostentatious concession to public opinion and as a decisive defeat not only for the antireform faction in general, but for Katkov personally, because the system of classical education Tolstoy had instituted had been largely Katkov's inspiration. 9

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Loris-Melikov's Thaw and the Press Coming when it did, the Pushkin Celebration came to be seen by many participants as a living refutation of Katkov's "slanders" against the intelligentsia and the press. Loris-Melikov's "dictatorship of the heart" (so labeled by the leading "liberal" Petersburg paper-and Moskovskie vedomosti's main rival-Golos)1° in fact gave almost free rein to Russian journalism. From April I, I88o, to January I, I88I, censorship was greatly slackened as administrative actions against the press came to a virtual halt, and a series of new papers and journals were given permission to publish. 11 During this same period, the People's Will called an unofficial truce with the state, waiting to see what the government would do. Organized terror ceased; the two assassination attempts that did occur-one against a police agent in Kiev, the other against Loris-Melikov himself-were isolated acts by lone individuals. Despite its still precarious legal position, the private newspaper in Russia was flourishing as never before. Between I86o and I88I the number of papers (not including official provincial gazettes, church, and purely informational ones) had jumped by more than five and a half times-from I 5 to 83; in I88o there were 65 papers in Petersburg (of which 22 were dailies), and 18 in Moscow (7 dailies).12 This phenomenal growth began after the death of Nicholas I, whose restrictive rules, strict censorship, and network of official papers had restrained the newspaper trade.I3 The private paper came to life only with the Great Reforms of the r86os, which freed newspapers to become financially viable enterprises by permitting retailing and the sale of advertisements. The reforms promised a measure of self-rule and encouraged the growth of more powerful and independent journalism. But the press reform, begun with the "temporary" law of April I865, which freed periodicals in Moscow and Petersburg from preliminary censorship and which many journalists considered a step toward abolishing censorship altogether, stopped halfway.l4 Amendments to the law after I 86 5 legally weakened newspapers and journals and put them more at the mercy of those very people and

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

64

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

institutions they were to monitor.l 5 On the one hand, the press in r88o felt that it was on the verge ofreceivingfull rights; P.A. Valuev, at work on legal reform, wrote in his diary in November r88o that, "given the present circumstances, the full freedom of the press is a foregone conclusion." 16 On the other hand, newspapers labored under a confusing and contradictory set of regulations, which, if enforced to the letter, could effectively kill off every one of themY The press in r88o was clearly anxious to seize an opportunity to prove its claim that it served the public interest, and it was undoubtedly the press that turned the Pushkin Celebration from "a celebration of a handful of Moscow literati" into (as Aksakov put it) "a true event in the historical development of Russian society, a great act of national self-consciousness, a new era, a turning point." Under its close scrutiny the celebration became a kind of showcase to prove or repudiate Katkov's assertions about Russian public opinion and a test of Russian public institutions, to see how well they lived up to their responsibility and potential. The leading radical critic Nikolai Mikhailovsky charged that the press and those who took part in the Pushkin Celebration used it as a convenient and self-serving pretext, what we might call today a "media event," to further their own interests.l 8 Yet it is undeniable that during the previous decade, the daily press had grown into a major force in Russia's internal-and even foreign-politics. By r88o the newspaper had long begun to eclipse the "thick journal," which had originally arisen in the thirties and forties as an alternative to the crippled daily press. This process had been accelerated after the late sixties, when the most popular of the thick journals were shut down by the government following D. V. Karakozov's attack on the tsar in r866. The founding of the Russian Telegraph Agency in r866 and the International Telegraph Agency in 1872 (both in private hands) helped increase the newspaper-reading audience, both by improving news coverage and by stimulating the growth of provincial papers. In the r Syos the daily press was able to report on the spectacular mass trials of populist revolutionaries, transcripts of which the official Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik published with varying degrees of completeness. The Serbian and Russo-Turkish wars also helped to create a new mass audience; for the first time, Russian papers had been freed to send out an army of correspondents, ill prepared and inexperienced as they may have been, to report news from the front.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

65

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin Fever By the time of the Pushkin Celebration, a battery of correspondents was ready to march on Moscow, and to relay in detail, by telegraph, rail, and post, a front-line description of the holiday. Vasilevsky described the flurry of journalistic activity that took place at the Pushkin Celebration. Fully half of the Petersburg press corps was on hand for the event, he noted, and the reporters wrote "during every break, without stopping for breath, exploiting every intermission, every free minute. Each post brought mounds of jubilee letters; the telegraph was going as never before; whole pages of newspaper type sped along the wires. It was all undertaken for the sake of as much completeness as possible, for thoroughness and timeliness of the accounts-and all [other] current journalistic material was sacrificed to it."l9 The papers not only established special daily columns devoted to the celebration ("The Pushkin Holiday," "The Pushkin Week," etc.), and published editorials, feuilletons, special features, and the reports of their correspondents, but also reported daily on what the other papers were saying. "Folios have already been filled with writing about the Pushkin celebration," wrote the feuilletonist for Russkii kur'er, who couldn't resist making his own lengthy contribution.20 Molva credited the zeal of the capital press with spreading the celebration to the rest of Russia. "Provincial papers are full of reports about local celebrations of the great poet's memory and debates about Pushkin's educational and social significance as a writer. What the capital papers say is now said in the provincial papers, which proves more than anything else the pan-Russian participation in this truly national celebration."2l Two full months after the event, an Odessa paper reported that "until recently, it was impossible to pick up a newspaper or journal without meeting with considerations about the Pushkin Celebration," and complained that all the talk "is definitely beginning to make us sick and tired!"22 The twenty-two papers and journals that appear on the official list of delegations represent only a very small part of the press corps that attended. Many publications sent several delegate-reporters, some of whom worked for more than one newspaper or journal, and some members of other delegations, even those who were not professional journalists, doubled as correspondents. Mezhov's specialized bibliography of the celebration lists multiple entries for more than I 10

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

66

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

periodicals, which include all the major Petersburg and Moscow papers and journals; provincial, regional, and institutional organs; regional and other independent provincial papers (several of which sent delegates or had stringers in Moscow); church papers and journals; specialized papers for teachers, peasants, farmers, doctors, artists, and actors; family publications; illustrated and satirical papers; university, philosophical, philological, juridical, and political journals; dailies, weeklies, monthlies, and quarterlies; and more.23 "At least on the day of the opening of the monument to the great poet," boasted one writer, "not one at least partially literate person can be found in Rus' who still needs an explanation about what the festivities now going on are all about." 24 The correspondents to the Pushkin Celebration acted not merely as passive observers but as participants. Mikhnevich reported that the journalists who came felt their importance and abandoned for a moment the habitual cynical persona of the reporter. Reporter-delegates received fancy cockades to wear and seemed, he said, to be surrounded by some sort of magic aura. No distinctions were drawn among newspapermen, critics, and other writers; they were all simply literary people and educated Russians. 25 The "thick" journalist and the newspaperman, for all their occasional animosity and rivalry, were still at this time drawn from the same ranks. The sharp differentiation of the later I 88os-when the Russian press, under political and economic pressure, became much more commercialized and narrowly professional (and less "literary")-had still not begun to be strongly felt.26

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Problems and Postponements The sudden interest the press took in the Pushkin Celebration grew in large part out of a series of last-minute scandals. Only a few weeks before the unveiling, it had hardly seemed that the celebration would offer anything of real interest. Ivan Aksakov, who later rated it so highly, wrote that "all of us, without exception, were somewhat skeptical about the upcoming celebration, and we set to work unwillingly." There was nothing in particular that might have indicated ahead of time that Pushkin would become the hero of the hour. Although there had been a steady stream of new materials about Pushkin's career published in the late r87os, Pushkin's name had hardly figured in Russian criticism since the harsh verdict delivered by Pisarev fifteen years before, with the possible exception of Dos-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

67

toevsky's very popular Diary of a Writer. Certainly, many of Pushkin's poems had become fixtures in Russian anthologies and become a regular part of the school curriculum-although commentators in r88o disagreed over whether this had aided or hurt the poet's popularity. Russian composers and choreographers had also helped keep Pushkin in the limelight. From the start of Pushkin's career, his works had been popular subjects for ballet and opera, and one may say without exaggeration that Pushkin played a central role in inspiring the creation of a national repertory. Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Dargomyzhsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov all composed major works based on those by Pushkin, and literally scores of more minor composers had set Pushkin's lyrics to music. 2 7 Yet as the date approached, there seemed to be little enthusiasm for the celebration; few preparations were under way, and those that were seemed dogged by the same ill luck and poor planning that had prolonged the subscription drive for so many years. Several newspaper editorials decried Russian social apathy and Russia's inability to properly horror her own. Peterburgskii listok declared the Russian situation to be on all counts inferior to the German, concluding that "we still aren't in condition" to fete Russian public figures properly. "One must say," editorialized Novae vremia shortly before the celebration, "that Russian society has answered the call to these festivities in far from a friendly way, in particular in its representatives, the city dumas. Nothing outstanding has been proposed either in Petersburg or Moscow." "In Europe this would all take on a different scope, of course," wrote Strana. "Europeans are used to having all of society speak out on such occasions, but as for us ... " Unexpected postponements of the celebration-first due to the death of Empress Maria, and then for unexplained bureaucratic reasons emanating from Petersburg-did not bode well for its success either. After the special train organized by the Society for Russian Railroads to ferry delegates and visitors to Moscow from Petersburg had been canceled for a second time, and no explanation given-to the understandable dismay of those already at the station and ready to go-P. A. Monteverde, the well-known feuilletonist who wrote under the name "Amicus," lost all of his amicability over the celebration. The very idea of such an event in Russia seemed misconceived and destined for disaster. Monteverde fumed: Old Mother Russia's taken it into her head to celebrate her poet Pushkin-taken the business into her head without figuring out whether or not she's ready for it, without judging whether or not she's capable of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

68

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

pulling it off in even some kind of a human fashion, so that people wouldn't just have a good laugh at her at every step, and not merely reject it all, not become indignant, or shrug their shoulders and wave their hands in despair. .. Oh! children, how dangerous your years! ... Ah! how foul, how disgusting! Why is it that wherever you look, wherever you take a step, without fail you stumble across a pile of rubbish ?2 H

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The OLRS Plans and Plots Perhaps because things looked so bleak at first, the tremendous interest the celebration finally generated seemed all the more amazing. Afterward, Monteverde grudgingly awarded the OLRS "both factually and morally the first place" for initiating the celebration. 2 9 The commission that the OLRS chose to organize the celebration came into being at the session of April I I, I88o, and consisted originally of nine members. L. I. Polivanov, head of a private Moscow gymnasium and later famous as the editor of a popular bowdlerized Pushkin, was selected president; its other members were N. A. Chaev, F. B. and B. F. Miller, P. E. Basistov, N. P. Aksakov, P. I. Bartenev, M. M. Kovalevsky, and the society's current president, S. A. Iur'ev; Turgenev was also soon asked to join. 3 o A general outline for the OLRS celebration was adopted at the session of April I I: two public "morning sessions" of the OLRS dedicated to Pushkin; two "literary-musical and dramatic" evening presentations featuring music conducted by Nikolai Rubenshtein, performances by leading actors and singers, and readings by Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, and other prominent writers, ending in an "apotheosis" of Pushkin regaled by the geniuses of world literature; an exhibition of Pushkiniana; and a subscription dinner with planned toasts and speeches.31 In addition, other groups were to be called on to broaden the celebration, such as the Commission for Popular Reading Rooms in Moscow, which arranged public readings and lectures about Pushkin "for the narod" in the Polytechnic Museum and on public squares. Russian writers invited to speak at the celebration included not only Dostoevsky and Turgenev, but Tolstoy, Saltykov, Goncharov, Pisemsky, Polonsky, Fet, Grigorovich, and Ostrovsky.3 2 The commission also asked Turgenev to write a brochure for the narod about Pushkin and to invite some of his European literary colleagues to Moscow for the unveiling. Foreign luminaries on the OLRS guest list

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

69

included Wallace Mackenzie, Thomas Carlyle, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Arthur Rimbaud, Berthold Auerbach, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Louis Leger, a well-known French Slavicist and the only one on this impressive roster to make the long journey to Russia.33 Among the others invited to attend were Pushkin's children and his two surviving classmates from the Lycee, S. D. Komovsky and Prince Gorchakov. Turgenev wrote to his friend V. P. Gaevsky that the Moscow governor-general, Prince V. A. Dolgoruky, had promised not only full cooperation with the OLRS commission's plans "but also the removal of all constraints on the speeches." Although the OLRS had failed to win the right to publish without censorship, it still did have the right to bypass the official censors for its meetings and to use instead its own in-house "executive committee" to review speeches. Furthermore, according to Turgenev, although the governor-general had been invited to attend the dinner, he declined "so as not (in his own words) to hamper the expression of opinions in the speeches and toasts." 34 At the very same time, however, Turgenev and his confederates on the OLRS commission took steps to keep Katkov from participating in the celebration, little expecting the upset their action would later cause. The commission included several of Katkov's most vocal opponents, Turgenev among the foremost. His famous public feud with Katkov dated back fifteen years and had broken out with renewed virulence during the novelist's trip to Russia the previous year, at which time Kovalevsky and his friends excluded Katkov from the meetings honoring Turgenev.3S Kovalevsky, a professor of law at Moscow University and a well-known liberal, was also an outspoken critic of Katkov, and especially of his campaign to deny autonomy to Russian universities. And OLRS president lur'ev, who edited Russkaia mysl', one of the new journals created during the Loris-Melikov thaw, was one of those who had taken up the gauntlet and repudiated Katkov's attacks on the intelligentsia in the previous month. Iur'ev had asked, "Has anyone in the Russian press ever insulted Russian society as the editor of Moskovskie vedomosti has ... ? Has anyone ever dared to hurl such words in the face of the entire Russian intelligentsia, to say that it is 'the tool of seditious enemies who are plotting evil against Russia and against the Russian people'? Will this really pass unpunished, and this offense to all of Russian society, this insolent, insane shriek of a fantasy inflamed by inquisitorial fire, really not be restrained?"36

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

70

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Turgenev and his friends saw the Pushkin Celebration as an opportunity to mobilize Russian literature against Katkov and all that he represented. In his letters to Annenkov, Gaevsky, and M. M. Stasiulevich on April 24 and 29, Turgenev reported gleefully that "the speeches will be given only by those people whose names will be on a list the Committee will compile, and from which every bad element will be eliminated .... We must put aside all cares, apprehensions and inappropriate considerations. I propose even that since no kind of disharmonies ala Katkov will arrive to bother us, we ought to dismiss any notion of a separate Petersburg dinner, which would be like mustard after supper."·' 7 At one of the early meetings of the OLRS commission, Kovalevsky-no doubt with the support of Turgenev and Iur'ev-insisted that Katkov be excluded from the guest list and suggested that an invitation be sent to N. A. Liubimov, Katkov's coeditor on his journal Russkii vestnik, instead. 3 B Despite his recent crusade against the intelligentsia, Katkov certainly had as much right as anyone to attend the unveiling of Pushkin's monument. In the r86os he had defended Pushkin and the autonomy of art against the radicals' attacks, and, more recently, had occasionally taken part in planning for the monument itself. Bartenev later wrote that the majority of the commission agreed to Kovalevsky's proposal, with P. E. Basistov, F. B. Miller, and Bartenev himself dissenting. (Strangely, he did not mention the presence of commission president Polivanov, who might have taken Katkov's side.) According to Bartenev, Turgenev's allies also tried to keep Dostoevsky from speaking at the celebration, but were voted down; those in favor of "ostracism" cited Dostoevsky's attempt to publicly embarrass Turgenev at a dinner given in his honor in March r879. 3 9 However, the blacklisting of Katkov from the celebration soon threatened to compromise the society, and even put the celebration itself in danger.

Pushkin and the Moscow City Duma Within a short time, word about the anti-Katkov cabal began to leak out, and when the OLRS realized it had to turn to the Moscow city duma for additional funding, the rumors played almost a fatal role. Initially, the OLRS had assumed that contributions from its members and the sale of tickets to the literary-musical evenings would finance the celebration, but as its scope broadened, the commission realized that it would face a deficit of approximately three

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

7I

thousand rubles. At its seventh meeting, on May 8, after some discussion it was agreed to appeal to the Moscow city duma for financial assistance. As preparations for the Pushkin Celebration developed, and with them public controversy, those persons and institutions responsible for representing society were thrust into the limelight, including the Moscow city duma, which, like most of the other institutions created by Alexander II's reforms, had become a common focus for debates over self-rule. A late product of the reforms, created by the law of June 12, I8yo, as an urban counterpart to the zemstvo, the city duma consisted of representatives elected by three classes of taxpayers and ran the city's physical plant, its schools, financial institutions, transport, and hospitals. 4 0 The elective system for the dumas kept them largely conservative, which often made them the target of attack and ridicule. Novae vremia charged that the Moscow duma cared more for city sewers than for the interests of the public: "Until the system of municipal elections changes ... one cannot consider the Moscow duma the representative of Moscow or the voice of Moscow's public opinion." 41 A commentator in Nedelia noted that "a simple feeling of propriety" might "force" dumas to take part in Pushkin celebrations, as the press urged them to do, but that for them really to become true representatives "it would be necessary for them to be guided by some other feeling that they don't have, and, indeed, cannot have. I will go even further: if our dumas suddenly began to change skins and bend over backward on the occasion of the Pushkin Celebration, I would frankly call it hypocrisy." 42 It is a measure of the importance the Pushkin Celebration was assuming that populist papers such as Nedelia, which a few years earlier would most likely have rejected any idea of associating with Pushkin, now took up his defense (even if only as a pretext to attack the duma and the conservatives). The Moscow duma considered OLRS plans for the opening of the monument at its meeting of May I 3. Polivanov had sent a letter asking for the duma's financial support, which was read aloud and in which Polivanov asserted that Moscow has the exclusive advantage over other cities in that the only literary society in Russia is located there; its members include poets on whom our great fatherland prides itself; in its publications the great Pushkin also once took part. This is the reason why the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature considered it its duty to take the outstanding role in the forthcoming celebrations on the occasion of the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

72

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

opening of the monument to the greatest Russian poet. Please God that a shortage of material means, or material help that comes too late, will not hinder the realization of a cause that has already fully begun. 43

In an earlier duma session, the representative M. P. Shchepkin had already urged the body to take "an honorable place" in the celebration "because [it is] not the literary public, but the whole Russian public [that] is opening the monument," and had stated that the duma would find itself in "a pathetic situation" if the hosts [of the holiday] turn out to be two or three writers" from the OLRS and not the city itself. Now Shchepkin rose again to urge the delegates to action, and M. A. Gorbov followed with an impassioned speech. This matter, he said, "touches upon the honor and glory of all Russia, in its very most noble, and most attractive manifestation. This is precisely the time when the City Administration can be the mouthpiece for public opinion, the opinion of the best part of society ... The Moscow City Public Administration must stand at the head of the whole celebration, take part in it in all respects, in all its details, to the broadest extent possible, in full measure of its means and rights." By this time, however, rumors about a conspiracy within the OLRS were gaining currency. After Gorbov's words, the representative Father P.A. Preobrazhensky rose to express his fear that should the city relinquish control over the money requested by the OLRS, the celebration might "take on the one-sided character of some literary party or other." Preobrazhensky, editor of Pravoslavnoe obozrenie and ardent supporter of Katkov, had approved of Moskovskie vedomosti's campaign against the intelligentsia and had even come to Katkov's defense after lur'ev's angry attack. Preobrazhensky told the duma that he had "well-founded information to establish that [some people] would like to give the celebration a tendentious [i.e., oppositionist] character." Preobrazhensky's allegations were no more believed in the duma than they were in the press, where they were greeted with ridicule and vicious personal attacks. 44 After very short debate, the duma voted to contribute three thousand rubles to the OLRS for the celebration, with no strings attached. Further, they created a seven-man Pushkin commission with the acting city head, L. N. Sumbul, in charge, and unanimously voted that the city of Moscow play host to all foreign and out-of-town delegates and guests at the celebration, who were to be lodged and fed at city expense. Later, the duma also approved plans to distribute Pushkin's folktales and other works free to elementary school children, who were let out from school on the day of the unveiling; to

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

73

hold a dinner for the delegates; to open two new elementary schools that would be named for Pushkin; and to decorate the city and especially Tverskoi Boulevard for the celebration. (But a proposal to rename the street "Pushkin Boulevard" was rejected, in the interests of historical continuity.) The duma, which had been so tentative about the holiday at first, ended up spending over fifteen thousand rubles on the Pushkin Celebration. 4S

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Scandals Great and Small Before the Katkov affair was raised again, public attention was taken up with other squabbles over the celebration. Soon after its creation, the OLRS commission had contacted Iakov Grot and the Imperially Established Committee, the local marshal of the nobility, Moscow University's rector N. S. Tikhonravov, and the city administration, both to find appropriate places for the meetings and other events and to set the other arrangements for the celebration into motion. However, the various parties involved soon came into conflict. As soon as the duma began to put its plans into effect, it collided with Moscow University, which had its own agenda for the celebration. The two groups disagreed over where the opening reception should take place, and the matter turned public after Tikhonravov refused to share the list of delegates with Sumbul.46 Because of the bad feelings, there was even talk about the city's trying to prevent the delegates from taking part in the university ceremonial. The city ultimately decided to hold its own reception in the duma hall. For its part, the OLRS commission chose to hold its sessions and exhibit in the Moscow Gentry's Assembly Hall (the "Blagorodnoe sobranie"), rather than in the smaller university auditorium that had been proposed. The university, led by Tikhonravov, subsequently arranged a separate "celebratory meeting" in its quarters with lectures on Pushkin by Tikhonravov himself and by Professors Kliuchevsky and Storozhenko. Molva decried the "terrible muddle" caused by all the discord. The OLRS, the university, and the city, complained the paper, "not only did not agree among themselves and did not unite, but went their own separate ways, nourishing far from friendly feelings toward one another."47 These minor flaps set the stage for the more menacing scandals that followed one upon another the week before the unveiling and thrust the celebration into the limelight, even threatening its can-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

74

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

cellation. On June 2, during the interim period after the empress's death when a new date for the celebration had not yet been fixed, the new daily Bereg created a sensation with its front-page report: Our Moscow correspondent sends information that bodes extremely ill for the upcoming celebration honoring Pushkin's memory. The national holiday of all educated Russia threatens to turn into a factional scandal by the demented pinkos of our periodic press [partioznyi skandal oshalevshikh krasnokozhikh nashei zhurnaTnoi pressy]. Instead of rendering the proper honors to the memory of the great poet, they are ready to dance a jig (popliasat' kachuchu] over his gravewhat's it to them? In the name of what [principles] would they restrain the display of their moral insanity? There's nothing to be surprised about-how can they rise to the ideal of a national cause when they look upon everything from the point of view of the convenience of their debaucheries?

Unlike the petty quarreling between Tikhonravov and Sumbul, the daily press had good reason to take Bereg's at first glance merely silly insinuations-which, like Preobrazhensky's allegations, must have stemmed from rumors about the blacklisting of Katkov-as a serious challenge to themselves and to the Pushkin Celebration. The furor was so great it even caught Bereg itself by surprise and was met (as the paper reported) "as if on signal, with the strongest of attacks by practically all of the Petersburg newspaper line."48

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Menace from the Right

Even though Bereg had only begun printing in mid-March, less than ten weeks earlier, and had one of the smallest circulations of all the Petersburg papers, it represented a palpable threat. The antireform faction within the government had initiated the paper as part of a larger undercover operation to combat the People's Will and to discredit the liberal press. The plan included the formation of a secret Holy Brotherhood ("Sviashchennaia druzhina"), a forerunner of the later infamous Black Hundreds organization, whose purpose was to organize retaliatory terror against revolutionaries, both at home and abroad.49 P. P. Tsitovich, a professor of law at Novorossiisk University in Odessa and a notorious "antinihilist" pamphleteer, had been recruited to run the paper, and Bereg's connections to the court, its reliance on state subsidies and links to the secret police were a widely known secret. 5o Bereg quickly earned the hatred of the liberal

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

75

and proreform papers for its none too subtle attempts to use its privileged position to compromise them politically. 51 One of Bereg's correspondents at the Pushkin Celebration, A. P. Mel'shinsky, actually doubled as a police agent, reporting back both to Bereg and to the Third Section. 52 It is distinctly possible that Bereg's "provocatory correspondence" reflected the doubts of highly placed Petersburg conservatives who were skeptical about OLRS politics and uneasy about whether the celebration itself should have been permitted. It was even rumored that the event's sudden, unexplained second postponement had been due to the authorities' last-minute doubts as to whether to allow it to proceed. On May 18, a few days after the flap at the Moscow city duma, Loris-Melikov had addressed a confidential letter to Governor-General Dolgorukov ordering him in the name of the tsar to take steps (in "absolute secrecy") to prevent "antigovernment demonstrations" at the celebration. 53 In his answer Dolgorukov outlined the steps the city and provincial police were taking. These included daily police rounds of hotels and furnished rooms in order to compare guests' names against a list of known political dissidents (all "suspicious persons" were to be placed under "the strictest observation"); keeping watch on well-known student hangouts; increasing foot and horse patrols during the celebration; and, last, assembling a special contingent to supervise the actual opening of the monument, with an additional force to be kept in reserve. Although Dolgorukov had been cooperating closely with Turgenev and the OLRS, and despite the fact that police presence remained quite unobtrusive throughout the celebration, the clear threat of police interference helps explain the virulence of the response to Bereg and its intimidating allegations. Molva declared that Bereg and its sympathizers "hate and detest all that is healthy in Russian life, in its past and its present; for them, Pushkin's career, and his glorious, undying memory in Russian society is a reproach to their barbarous journalistic activity. And here they lie, libel, insinuate, print disgraceful correspondences that bear false witness, incite denunciations and the third degree against the high, lofty, and patriotic celebration of all thinking Russian society! What cynicism! What a disgrace!"5 4 Galas, one of Bereg's chief targets, called the paper's remarks "lies and disgraceful insinuation, covered over with a kind of false patriotism." Navasti charged that Bereg is "only brave from behind corners, when they know that the public disdain they arouse won't cause them any substantial retribution." Turning directly to

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

76

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

address the paper, Novosti declared: "You lie shamelessly, saying that the interests of 'educated Russia' are close to you, that the poet's memory is dear to you-you lie, a hundred times over!. .. you fear it more than fire each time, even the most innocent time, that 'educated Russia' can assert its existence, be conscious of itself and have its say, even in the most humble and legitimate matter-such as the opening of the monument to Pushkin, which has been approved by the state."SS Bereg obviously touched a raw nerve and helped galvanize support for the Pushkin Celebration. Monteverde, who just two days before had been in a state of despair over "Old Mother's Russia's" inability to honor her poets, now began to take the celebration more seriously, and suggested what must have been on many people's minds: that the ultimate purpose behind Bereg's correspondence was to convince the tsar to forbid the celebration altogether. Bereg wanted, he said, "to turn this wedding into a funeral."S6

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Public Revelation of Katkov's Blacklisting Then on the next day, June 3, two days before the unveiling, while the other papers were printing their outraged reactions to Bereg's "rumors" and "scandalmongering," Moskovskie vedomosti stunned everyone when it published the following letter from Iur'ev which seemed to give substance both to Preobrazhensky's and to Bereg's accusations: "The commission of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature reserved one place for a deputy from Russkii vestnik [edited by Katkov and N. A. Liubimov]. By mistake an invitation was sent, by me, to the editorial board of Moskovskie vedomosti, an invitation inconsistent with the oral decision of the commission. President of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, Sergei Iur'ev. June r, r88o." Referring to the letter as "a warning," Katkov's paper commented tersely that "We have only to add that the editorial board of Russkii vestnik returned its ticket as unwanted." While many papers took this as an opportunity to disparage Katkov, most of the press also denounced the OLRS for using a national cause "to act out its own dissensions, one-sidedness, and narrow views."57 The incident raised numerous questions-about the society's handling of the celebration, about methods of dealing with one's ideological opponents, and about the importance of the Pushkin Celebration in general. The specific questions about what had

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

77

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

happened were largely overshadowed by the fast pace of events but added great drama to the celebration, especially when it was learned that the Moscow city administration had invited Katkov to speak on the day of the unveiling two days later, at the dinner it was planning for the delegates. Although the question of why the commission had first sent and then retracted Katkov's invitation has never fully been answered, the draft of a note from Iur'ev to Polivanov, preserved in the Polivanov archive in the Central State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow, tells part of the inside story. Iur'ev wrote: Most Respected Lev Ivanovich, Had I known even this morning that the invitation to Moskovskie vedomosti had not been sent, I would have begged you not to send it. This paper would have been denied a ticket [inserted: "without asking leave of the whole society"] on the same basis by which many other papers were denied them. I regret very much that it has happened. I foresee bad consequences for the society. I have thought this over today, and I cannot think why the present celebration is not sufficient for expressing my protest against Moskovskie vedomosti's baseness; indeed Pushkin himself wouldn't attend our society because Bulgarin was a member. And in essence, even if Katkov would express his repentance in some way, he would still be the same, and his paper the same. Make sure that his deputy, in fulfillment of his patron's wishes, doesn't drop a bomb [briaknul chego] in his speech. The appearance of a deputy from Mos. ved. will in any case disturb the mood of our celebration. Of course it's impossible to avoid exchanging tickets on a legal basis; but if it would be possible by some unofficial means or other it would be very good. I don't know why [I] should [not?] show contempt for many Petersburg papers by denying them our invitation, the etiquette we followed with Mos. ved., or perhaps it is better to be more polite with a gangster than with a pickpocket. I repeat, deeply respected Lev [Ivanovich], it would be a good thing to keep the deputy from M. ved. away from the society's sessions. 5 8

This letter unequivocally confirms the intention of the OLRS Pushkin commission-or at least, of Iur'ev himself-to deny Katkov a chance to speak at the celebration, if even by "illegal, unofficial" means. Despite the "oral decision of the commission" taken at a meeting in April, which Polivanov apparently did not attend (although he nominally presided), Polivanov had sent an invitation to Katkov. The questions of how and why he did so remain obscure. According to Strana, Polivanov procured Iur'ev's official signature on it by trickery. Then when Kovalevsky and the anti-Katkov faction found out,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

78

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

they confronted Iur'ev, who as president of the OLRS was obliged to write the letter retracting the invitation. But as one paper commented, it is hard to accept the scenario that Polivanov "shoved under him [Iur'ev) everything he wanted" to get signed. Furthermore, the letter cited above clearly indicates that Iur'ev himself wanted Katkov kept out and does not suggest that Iur'ev felt that he had been tricked. Publicly Iur'ev insisted that sending the invitation had been a mistake and that the retraction was not meant to humiliate Katkov. Polivanov's passionate support for Katkov on the issue of classical school reform 5 9 may have moved him to send the invitation, or perhaps it was the implicit trust the duma had placed in the OLRS not to manipulate the celebration when it had voted the society financial support; we can only speculate, since we have no record of Polivanov's side of the incident.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Liberal Press Closes Ranks The proliferating scandals dramatized the intelligentsia's battle for political recognition and helped focus broad attention on the Pushkin Celebration as a significant skirmish in the struggle. For those who hoped for a free press, the incidents with Bereg and Moskovskie vedomosti, despite some of their disturbing implications, magnified the potential importance of the upcoming Pushkin Celebration as a positive symbol and as a chance to dispel the threatening clouds hanging over the intelligentsia. The "liberals" took up Pushkin as the banner of a free and independent, yet legitimate and loyal, public opinion. "The part of the press which is taking the most sincere role in honoring the poet," insisted Molva, "is that which was recently doused with a heavy rain of accusations about their 'seditiousness' and their trading winks with the Nihilists. These bloodthirsty, fanatical voices must shut up. Russian journalism, if only under the impress of a wake for the great poet, must rid itself of the stifling atmosphere of criminality and police stations. Their talk, trading in denunciation and the third degree, would now be a glaring dissonance, like the outbursts of music during the last agonizing minutes of the dying Traviata." 60 (An inauspicious metaphor indeed!) The issue, clearly, went far deeper than Pushkin and reflected the struggle, as Strana put it, "only between the defenders and enemies of selfgovernment and the free expression of opinions ... Between them, in essence, there is no middle ground."6 1

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

79

The scandals also highlighted the unhappy current state of the Russian press, in speaking of which one commentator used the analogy of a jar full of scorpions: lacking the room and fresh air to breathe freely and survive, journalists start to ''sting each other unmercifully, [and] they destroy one another, and destroy themselves morally."62 The disaster some envisioned for Moscow actually came to pass in Saratov, where a local Pushkin Celebration featuring a dinner with speeches had been planned by a joint committee that included the editors of three local papers- V alga, Saratovskii listok, and Saratovskii dnevnik. But before the celebration was to take place, the coalition fell apart. Valga's editor, G. N. Iuren'ev, withdrew, and then the Listok followed suit. "Hence all the efforts, the telegrams, ads, and so forth, turned out to be much ado about nothing!" reported a Petersburg correspondent. "And now all they are talking about in the city is the failed attempt of the local journalists to get together for one hour in one place."63 The celebration simply dematerialized. The feuding papers would not join together even to make a gesture such as organizing a collection for a scholarship in Pushkin's name, and all mention of the celebration mysteriously disappeared from their pages.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Capitalizing on Pushkin Other commentators fretted over another kind of threat to the celebration: Pushkin's commercial trivialization. In Petersburg, local merchants and speculators took advantage of the growing excitement by marketing all sorts of merchandise relating to the unveiling, most of it, however, of decidedly inferior quality. Russkii kur'er decried the practice of "putting rubbish on sale and trying to conceal it with [Pushkin's] dear[!] name."6 4 The cigarette firm of LaFoire, for example, marketed "Pushkin papirosy" (cheap cardboard cigarettes) with a picture of the monument on the package. M. Sioux's candy store sold sweets with a brochure of pseudomemoirs about Pushkin in the box (which one writer dubbed a "poetically confectionery Geschiift"), and a distiller prepared a special-flavored "Pushkin vodka" with an offensively bad portrait of the poet on the label. Photos of the place where Pushkin's duel took place were sold at the Kuznetsky Bridge, and photos and models of the monument-as well as lithographs of the poet himself-proliferated. Several publishers issued inexpensive brochures and booklets about Pushkin for the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

80

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

celebration, most very poorly written. 6s Meanwhile, the amusement parks in Moscow and Petersburg with dinner theaters (which usually presented French operettas) prepared "Pushkin presentations," featuring works by the poet set to music; some arranged their own elaborate "unveiling" ceremonies, with light shows, fireworks, and exhibitions about Pushkin's life and works.66 As the celebration approached, there was also a flurry of interest in locating "Pushkin places"-the poet's birthplace, his grave, the house where he died, and so forth-and in making sure that they were properly marked and maintained. In Petersburg a great effort was made to find the precise spot where Pushkin's duel took place. Reporters were outraged to discover that animals were grazing there. In Moscow Opekushin's statue attracted an inordinate amount of attention, even before its unveiling. Nedelia declared its wrapping "repulsive," and Novae vremia said that the "horrible" and "shameful shroud" "made poor Pushkin look like a gallows-bird."

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Delegates Are Received At 2 P.M., Thursday, June 5, city officials and members of the Imperially Established Committee welcomed the delegates in the duma hall to inaugurate the "Pushkin Days." The prince of Oldenburg and Governor-General Dolgorukov, Kornilov, Iakov Grot, Pushkin's children and their families were all present. The "ceremonial greeting" that opened the celebration, reported one paper, "remained within the bounds of dry and official formalism. It ... was distinguished by its complete monotony. It was an unending procession in single file of full-dress uniforms and tails."67 One hundred and six delegations consisting of over two hundred fifty people advanced to the stage, which was covered with tropical greenery and featured a large bust of Pushkin in the center; once there they set down wreaths in front of the bust and read or recited their greetings. The speech by one delegate, the representative of Russian military schools, sounded to one reporter "like a simple report to the authorities." Over the next three days, other critics remarked upon the abysmal quality of oratory displayed at the celebration, especially those who, like the writer Gleb Uspensky, were impatiently looking for the celebration's "message." Uspensky complained that by the end of the celebration, for those who listened [to all the speeches] the continual repetition of "Pushkin," "Pushkin this,"

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

8I

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

"Pushkin that" had already begun to leave a bitter aftertaste. And what wasn't said about him! ... Pushkin, the Awakening of the Russian Muse, that Unplumbed Source of Inspiration .... Every people, every tongue sings his name, but We, Russians, Youngest of Nations, we, who first discovered ourselves in his Creations, we greet our Pushkin as forerunner of those miracles which, "perhaps," we are "destined to perform." . . . There were speeches so strange that even if one wanted one could not track down precisely where the main clause was located. Some orators even seemed to begin directly with a subordinate clause, and having started off with "Pushkin, who ... " or "Pushkin, whose glorious name ... ," already found it impossible to get back on the straight path, and in this way got bogged down for twenty minutes or so in subordinate clauses. 68 Despite the monotony of the opening meeting, Aksakov maintained that "the official reception of deputies in the duma raised the general level of spirits, unexpectedly for all, by a whole octave, so to speak." The fact that a member of the tsar's family and other high officials had come to pay public homage to a poet, he said, was "a new sight for us: a manifestation of moral force humbling the coarse strength of external state power." Their presence at the unveiling was "for the first time, a victory of the spirit over the flesh, an admission on the state's part of the rights of mind and talent in Rus'!" 6 9 Even more significant in this regard was the later arrivalon direct and official order of Alexander 11-of Dmitrii Tolstoy's replacement as minister of education, A. A. Saburov, who had ordered the schools closed for the day of the opening. Scanning the list of delegates, Vasilevsky concluded that "society's participation could not have expressed itself more fully or definitively." Representatives came from all branches of academia, literature, art, music, and the stage, from governmental, educational, and philanthropic institutions, professional and private societies, and from many provincial, urban, and regional centers. In attendance too was a peasant from the province of Tver', V. S. Zhelnobobov, who spoke, he said, "in the name of today's free and multimillion peasantry/' gaining much attentionJO All of these people came to Moscow of their own accord, said Vasilevskyi "no one prompted them, no one instructed them"i they came "like warriors to camp at the trumpeter's call/' from all corners of the empire. There were, however, almost equally eloquent correspondents who could point without much difficulty to conspicuous absences: where, for example, were the booksellers and typesetters? the other Russian universities?

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

82

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

the military schools? the zemstvos and folk schools? While one writer saw "all classes of people, from all corners of Russia, all literate people" represented, another could declare that "it isn't possible to name all the places and institutions from which one could have expected a response to the celebration but didn't get one." The next day came the "triumphal unveiling" of the monument itself, the university's ceremonial meeting in the afternoon, and in the evening, the city's dinner for the delegates. The unveiling was preceded by a mass, panikhida (requiem), and sermon by Metropolitan Makarii in the Strastnoi monastery opposite the square where the monument had been built. Makarii himself belonged to the OLRS and gave a ringing speech wishing "eternal memory" (the title of a major prayer in the panikhida) to Pushkin, an eloquent affirmation of Russian literature, wrote Vasilevsky, the like of which now "sounded for the first time from a church pulpit" in Russia.7 1

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

To Sprinkle or Not to Sprinkle~ Pushkin and the Church The reporter was alluding to the Russian clergy's often antagonistic attitude toward Russian letters. Indeed, there had almost been another scandal concerning the church's role in the Pushkin Celebration itself. It had originally been announced that Makarii would lead the crowd in a procession out of the church onto the square and then consecrate the statue with holy water, but the clergymen did not leave the church after the service. The semiofficial church paper Vostok explained afterward that the ecclesiastics did not process "because the Holy Synod did not find it possible to condone the sprinkling of the statue with holy water, which, as is well known, is forbidden by the statutes of the Orthodox Church." 72 While this refusal did not upset many people-one Petersburg paper said it lent the ceremony on the square a desirable "civic character"-not all accepted Vostok's argument. "The question arises involuntarily," wrote the Russkii kur'er, "how it is that previously all monuments were consecrated by the high clergy?"73 (Barsukov records that the monument to Karamzin in Simbirsk was sprinkled; and as Russkii kur'er noted, so were the more recent monuments to Admirals Bellingshausen and Kmsenstern in Kronstadt and Petersburg, and the admirals were not even Orthodox but Lutheran.) Bereg reported on June 4 that "certain circles" that "do not want 'a literary holiday to

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

83

have the church's sanction' have started rumors that the simple folk finds it strange that an 'idol' will be consecrated, and that a man killed in a duel will be commemorated in church."7 4 One delegate noted later that there had been talk at the conservative English Club about the impropriety of a clergyman's "going out into the street" to sprinkle a monument to a poet, and asserted that both anonymous and signed protests had been sent to the governor-general about it.7 5 Some papers also complained that no one higher than an archpriest had been assigned to lead the service for Pushkin at St. Isaac's in Petersburg, where the authorities-it was recalled-had refused to let Pushkin's funeral take place in 1837.?6 However, the question of the church's attitude toward Pushkin did not become a big issue in 188o, although it did presage the bitter polemics over Pushkin's religious profile during the period of the Pushkin Centennial of 1899, when the state enlisted church support for its official celebration.77

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pushkin Unveiled This hardly noticed revision of the program could not spoil the triumphant atmosphere at the unveiling. "From morning, all Moscow was on its feet," reported Novae vremia. Everyone who witnessed the scene remarked upon the tremendous number of people who turned out for it-many of them peasants and traders who were attracted by the holidaylike preparations, which Vasilevsky compared to those at Easter and Christmas. Many people who had already gone to their dachas for the summer returned to Moscow for the event. Estimates of the crowd at the unveiling ranged from about one hundred thousand to over half a million. Streets and sidewalks were packed as far as the eye could see, and the special grandstands built by speculators and the amphitheater built by the city for its female guests were packed, as were neighboring roofs and windows (where spaces were sold beforehand for twenty-five to fifty rubles each). As the procession (sans clergy) left the monastery church, Rubenshtein directed four orchestras and several choruses and groups of schoolchildren in the hymn "How Glorious." The square and connecting streets were garlanded with flowers. Delegates wore badges and carried wreaths; some waved flags of red, white, and blue with their delegation's name stamped in gold, and others supported banners with the titles of famous works by Pushkin emblazoned on

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

A. M. Opekushin's Pushkin monument in Moscow: gravure by K. Veimam (188o), and the mo

ment today (photograph courtesy of Olga Kagan).

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

85

white shields and framed with garlands. The fact that one delegation carried a banner labeled "Brother Brigands" (the title of one of Pushkin's works) shocked a few people, and the rather skeptical U spensky thought it indicative that barristers, tavern owners, members of the Gentry Club and of the Jewish Society had been made to march together-a combination, he thought, worthy of Offenbach. After a short speech during which Kornilov turned over the monument to the city's care, at one o'clock, with the sun breaking through an overcast sky, the monastery bells rang out, heads were bared, and the notorious "shroud" was removed from Opekushin's imposing statue. Moments later, a series of tremendous cheers went up from the crowd and echoed loudly across the square. People were "crazed with happiness"; many wept, and even the most hard-nosed of the newspapermen admitted afterward to shedding a few tears. Some present interpreted this emotional outpouring as an indication of a new union between the narod and the learned classes. Witnesses all spoke of an almost "miraculous" atmosphere on the square. One reporter observed that "there were no speeches in the official sense of the word, but how many good, warm, joyful thoughts were expressed in separate groups, people among themselves, where every minute there appeared ecstatic, fiery orators! How many sincere handshakes, how many good honest kisses did people exchange-often people who weren't even acquainted!" And another asked, "Where are the colors, where are the words to convey the intoxication of the triumphal moment? Those who didn't see it did not see the narod in one of its best moments of spiritual joyousness [dukhovnoe prosvetlenie ]. "78 Then, to the strains of Meyerbeer's march "The Prophet," based on Pushkin's poem of the same title, the delegations approached the monument and laid wreaths at its base. When the procession was over, there was a mad rush up to the monument. Within moments, most of them were pulled away and shredded as "people threw themselves onto the wreaths" to grab souvenirs. 79 Participants, however, remarked upon the complete absence of drunkenness, fighting, or cursing characteristic of Russian holiday gatherings and proudly noted that no police intervention had been necessary. Katkov's Speech and "L'Incident Katkoff" The good feelings of the unveiling increased apprehensions about the upcoming duma-sponsored dinner that evening at which Katkov

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

86

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

was scheduled to speak. Rumors were running rampant; some predicted a big confrontation, "a public settling of scores," denunciations, and even fist fights. Tensions were heightened-complained Russkii kur'er-by all the correspondents who rushed about trying to substantiate stories and ended up merely spreading gossip and anxiety. The report from Nedelia's correspondent was characteristic: "In the evening [before the dinner] I drop by Dostoevsky's, and see that he is in a most horrible state: he is somehow twitching all over, in his eyes-anxiety, in his movements-irritation and alarm. I knew he was a highly nervous and impressionable person who passionately gave himself up to every emotion, but I had never seen him in such a state before. "What's wrong, Fedor Mikhailovich?"-"Ach, what will happen, what will happen!" he exclaims in answer, with despair. "What do you mean? What's the matter?" He says nothing definite, but I know perfectly well without him what is wrong ... When I left him I was even more upset than when I arrived." When the moment of truth-the duma dinner-finally arrived, he continued, "my fears began to subside of themselves; nonetheless, despite the terrible heat, I shuddered with a chill. Indeed a word, just one word, one inappropriate word would be enough to ruin the mood, and spoil the whole celebration! Would such a word really be uttered? Would such a sound really ring out? ... I don't think that a defendant looks at the foreman of the jury about to read the verdict with more agitation than I as I looked at Mr. Katkov at that moment.''SO A wag at Russkii kur'er offered his own version: "The feuilletonist is gripped with fever, he shudders with cold, and when Mr. Katkov rises from his place to make his toast, the feuilletonist's teeth chatter so loudly that the waiter almost drops his tray of wildfow1. "81 The reporters were not the only ones to imagine a grand confrontation. Having learned that Katkov was to speak, the anti-Katkov bloc in the OLRS held an impromptu meeting to decide what action to take. Turgenev informed Kovalevsky in a quick note written early Friday, June 6, the day of the dinner, that "yesterday it was all decided collectively that we must all go [to the dinner] without failotherwise it might seem that we are cowards. But if Katkov permits himself something, we will stand up together and walk out." 82 The scandal connected with Katkov's speech, however, turned out to be of a different order from that which Turgenev and the others expected. In his short toast, Katkov referred to the celebration as a

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

87

"holiday of peace" and quietly appealed to the intellectual community for unity and reconciliation:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

People of various opinions-perhaps differing opinions, perhaps antagonistic ones-have gathered here at the Pushkin Celebration, before his monument. It is true, however, that all have come voluntarily, that means, with a sincere desire to honor his memory, precious to all... I hope that my sincere word will be accepted in a friendly manner by everyone without exception. Whoever we may be, from wherever we may have come, and however we may differ on other matters, on this day, at this celebration, all of us I hope are of one mind, all are allies. Who knows, perhaps this passing rapprochement will serve as a pledge for a more durable unity in the future and will lead to the dying out, or at least the mitigation, of hostilities. 83 Katkov concluded with Pushkin's famous toast in verse, "Let the sun shine forth, let the darkness cease!" ("Da zdravstvuet solntse, da skroets'ia t'ma!"j. What happened next-or failed to happen-came to be known as "I' incident Katkoff." Katkov had spoken softly, and in the large duma hall many of those present could not make out his words clearly or gauge very well the immediate reaction to them. Most papers that bothered to remark on the crowd's reaction reported moderate or intermittent applause, or even "loud and unanimous" approbation, and noted that several of Katkov's long-standing foes, such as Aksakov and P. A. Gaideburov, editor of Nedelia, got up and demonstratively congratulated him. Other papers noted a less than enthusiastic response, which they attributed to both the poor audibility and the feeling in the audience that "it was not his place to speak." The ''politics" of Golos's editor Andrei Kraevsky, Mikhnevich noticed, was not to react at all but to stare at his plate and smooth his mustache. Turgenev pointedly refused to "clink glasses" with Katkov even though the editor proffered his glass twice. 8 4 All of these details soon became the grounds for controversy, because the "special correspondent" from Golos (V. A. Bil'basov?j stated in his report the next day that Katkov had been decisively and universally rebuffed. No one would clink glasses with him or shake his hand, the reporter asserted, concluding that "a painful impression is caused by one who is undergoing his [just] punishment, by one who thought to redeem twenty years of betrayal with table talk."SS As with Bereg's "inflammatory correspondence," Colas's report triggered a surprisingly vehement reaction in the tension-filled and

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

88

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

very self-conscious press. At issue now was not only the expression of opinions in print, but the factual presentation of something that had happened in front of almost three hundred witnesses, many of whom were Russia's leading journalists. The "Katkov incident" might have better been termed the "Golos incident" i the entire press corps, regardless of political coloration, denounced the paper for bearing false witness. Even those who accused Katkov of being "the main sower of that dissension which has reigned among us for the past twenty years" and those who were skeptical about his call for reconciliation stood up for Katkov's right to speak and be heard. Aksakov, Dostoevsky, and a group of delegates staying at the Loskutnaia Hotel thought of organizing a collective letter of protest against the paper. 86 Monteverde commented that "in the present case the indignant protest by the press was truly remarkable. All our papers rose as one against this premeditated falsehood, this printed forgery, and stigmatized such unprecedented behavior."87 Despite convincing refutations by Novosti, Strekoza, Molva, S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, Novoe vremia, and other papers, Golos kept the incident alive by continuing to insist on its version of events and to elaborate on Katkov's many unforgivable sins. After harping on the incident for more than a week and a half, Golos declared, "The problem is not in the fact ... whether or not it happened .... The importance is not in that, but in how the press, and Golos in particular, related to it."88 In this, at least, the other papers might have agreed. This artificially manufactured scandal, this "drop of tar in the honey barrel" and "unnecessary dissonance" in the celebration became another rallying point for the rest of the press, as the Bereg correspondence had been. Both of these dishonest and politically motivated reports, coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, backfired. Denounced by the majority of the press, they served to affirm the ability of Russian journalism as a whole to police itself and to act as responsible arbiter of public opinion.

The Pushkin Celebration as Vindication of Glasnost' Because the press did not lose its equilibrium and surrender to the kind of infighting that destroyed the Saratov celebration, it emerged stronger and more outspoken. Continuing unprecedented interest in the celebration during its subsequent days and the phenomenal idoli-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

THE CELEBRATION THAT ORGANIZED ITSELF

89

zation first of Turgenev and then of Dostoevsky emboldened many observers to proclaim that, at last, Russian public opinion had come into its own, in the name of Pushkin. The celebration, they said, had suddenly and dramatically revealed that the press was capable of taking on a responsible role in Russian society, and had definitively refuted Katkov's accusations about the intelligentsia's spiritual bankruptcy and political untrustworthiness. Journalists of varied complexions spoke of what had taken place as a spontaneous "moral miracle." The Pushkin Celebration, wrote Novae vremia's editor, Aleksei Suvorin, organized itself. [It was not organized] at all by its masters of ceremony. The animation that seized everybody at once, unexpectedly for one and all, that made many cry tears of joy, ecstasy, and tenderness (incomprehensible to those who weren't present at the opening of the monumentl-that's what organized it ... Yes, no one expected it would happen that way! They thought that it would follow old patterns, that there would be a small celebration to which some official persons would lend a somewhat imposing air .... Everyone felt himself in his place, everyone felt himself a participant in a serious cause. 89

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Gaideburov's paper boldly asserted the victory of Russia's intellectual forces. In their obvious power and unity the Moscow celebration far exceeded the most audacious expectations, and, almost unforeseen, grew into a huge public event, an event in which one can see-without exaggeration-a decisive turnaround in social consciousness ... Thanks to the coincidence of the idea of the celebration with the reigning feeling, something extraordinary happened. A spark burst into flame. Something only dimly conscious was expressed in precise form; that which sought embodiment found it in firm, burning words, and the idea manifested itself as an obvious fact; that which had been dimly smoldering in people's minds blazed up in burning letters .... [It was] a clear turnaround in public consciousness. . . . This celebration, by its character and significance, very strongly announced the urgent, burning, deeply harbored desire of Russian society and the strivings alive within it. It corresponded to the mood that governs society now, and that seeks issuance .... This desire-which will not cease, and which is already bursting forth-is the desire for cooperative action in the name of a common goal, that social forces slumbering or mute will finally have the chance to assert themselves for the good of the country. 90

"Here Russia's intellectual maturity was recognized," declared Molva, "and her capacity for an independent intellectual life on a level with all cultured peoples." "From now on," the paper continued,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

90

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

with a final jab at Katkov, "we will not start to negate Russian society and the Russian intelligentsia."n As interest in the celebration snowballed, the event came to be perceived as a special manifestation of the public's need for selfexpression. S. Peterburgskie vedamasti noticed that during the Pushkin Celebration "all interests of the minute, even the interests of so-called high politics, receded into the background. At least that is how this event has been reflected in the press, which from this day has been acquiring more and more the right to serve as the exponent of public opinion. We may take note of this fact in the history of our life with an especially joyous feeling, a fact loudly arguing that our society is getting stronger and more mature, morally and intellectually." Peterburgskaia gazeta concluded that "Russian public opinion made a decisive step forward at the Pushkin festivities in Moscow." Moreover, it said, the celebration proved that the force of public opinion could serve the interests of both state and society, if only it could be trusted and supported by law. "We use the experience of the Pushkin Celebration," wrote Savremennye izvestiia, "to show the powers that be that any gathering of literati and, in general, of the representatives of the press is in the highest interests of the government and can bring only benefit.... [We are creating our] rules of honor, our moral court, our public opinion amid the very organs of public opinion .... Public voice [glasnast'], here, like anywhere else, is the best restraint and the best school of responsibility. "9 2 Russkii kur'er found perhaps the best formula for what the Pushkin Celebration had catalyzed: a "self-comprehended public opinion [asmyslivshee sebia abshchestvennae mnenie]"-something which by the very act of comprehending itself asserts its existence and reality. In a directly analogous way to that in which the national poet "creates" the Russian nationality by (as Ostrovsky put it in a muchquoted toast) "discovering the Russian soul," so now, in the name of Pushkin, the representatives of Russian society declared that the nation was at long last ready to take serious part in self-consciously planning its own destiny. Galas concluded that "society" and the "intelligentsia" no longer represented abstract terms read in a thick journal but a living body of people which had proved that it could act in its own interest.93

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

4 Turgenev's Last Stand

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

"All thinking and feeling Rus'" gathered in Moscow for the Pushkin Celebration. At the center of activity-and controversy-stood lvan Turgenev. Participant, organizer, propagandist, and standardbearer of the "return to Pushkin," Turgenev, while hailed on the first days of the celebration as Pushkin's 11 rightful heir," fell short of the general expectation that he would give a forceful statement about Pushkin's importance in his speech and lead the liberal faction at the celebration to triumph. A look at Turgenev's role in organizing the celebration, at his failure to convince Tolstoy to participate, his initial ecstatic public reception and the lukewarm reaction to his speech, and at Mikhailovsky's criticism of the celebration as a manifestation of unripe public opinion sheds light on the Pushkin Celebration as a problematic "liberal manifestation" and exposes the vulnerability of Turgenev's liberal, 11 enlightenment" position.

Turgenev's Return to Prominence The previous decade and a half had been a time of disillusionment for Turgenev, both as a Russian writer and as a political observer. Turgenev had lived abroad in Germany and France since the early I86os, after the violent polemics surrounding Fathers and Sons, and his decision to quit Russia-apart from his well-known attachment to the Viardots-was rightly taken as a rejection of Russia's oppressive political and cultural climate.l His letters of subsequent years

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

92

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

record the writer's bitter and chronic laments about the premature scuttling of the Emancipation reforms, the oppressive censorship and repressive classical education system, as well as the Russian intelligentsia's own uncompromising extremism, which he felt made the possibility for reform all the more remote. With the critical failure of the last of his "social" novels, Virgin Soil, in r877, his popularity and influence seemed to have hit bottom. Although the novel had gained instant success in Europe, in Russia the critics had condemned it, as they had the politically pointed Smoke (r867) and the pointedly apolitical Spring Torrents (1872).2 Even Turgenev himself began to conclude that living outside of Russia he had lost touch with contemporary life there and that his career as a creative writer was over. When Turgenev made a brief trip to Russia in early r879, however, because of the death of his brother, he unexpectedly found himself propelled into the center of public attention. The political crisis that followed the Russo-Turkish War had given a dramatic boost to Turgenev's popularity in Russia. The moderate message and sympathetic portrait of populist revolutionaries of Virgin Soil, which had seemed far fetched and inappropriate in r877, now struck a responsive note, and Turgenev suddenly found himself elevated to leader of the movement for reform. His arrival became the pretext for literary gatherings that turned into demonstrative "liberal demonstrations," arranged by several of the same people who later organized the Pushkin Celebration. First, Kovalevsky set up a small dinner to honor the novelist on February rs.a The emotional scene at the dinner, at which Turgenev was declared the favorite writer of Russian youth, prompted Kovalevsky and lur'ev to organize an open session of the OLRS two days later at Moscow University (to which the society was formally attached). The students there greeted Turgenev ecstatically, hailing him as a hero in the fight against serfdom and as a champion of political reform.4 In the following days, Turgenev was invited to a further series of banquets and literary readings. A police agent who monitored the "noisy and unprecedented ovations" accorded Turgenev in Moscow reported in a secret memorandum that "passionate speeches" were delivered in which "it was declared almost directly that Russia stands on the eve of a constitutional revolution and some sort of special democratization." He noted that "Moscow has recently been exclusively occupied with these celebrations," and the frenzied acclaim continued with equal fervor in Petersburg. 5

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV'S LAST STAND

93

Turgenev was no less enthusiastic about his reception for recognizing (as his friend the emigre revolutionary Peter Lavrov wrote) that "the ovations given him related far less to his person than they constituted an opportunity for the liberals' agitation." 6 The demonstrations, Lavrov suggested, also provided an outlet for "those of the socialists who had little penchant for bloody measures," that is, political assassination. In a speech Turgenev gave on March 6 at one of the banquets in his honor, he spoke of himself as a representative of Belinsky, Granovsky, and the liberals of the r84os:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

There is no doubt that your sympathy relates not to me as a writer who managed to deserve your favor, but more to a person belonging to the epoch of the forties-to a person who has not betrayed either his artistic and literary convictions or the so-called liberal trend .... Now, when all things indicate that we stand on the eve of a not only hopedfor and legally correct but also a significant restructuring [perestroi] of our public life, this word "liberal" seems somewhat indefinite and changeable. Just think, who doesn't hide behind it! But in our, that is, in my, youth, when there still could be no mention of political life, the word "liberal" signified a protest against all that was dark and stifling, it meant respect for science and education, love for poetry and art, and finally-most of all-it meant love for the people, who, still oppressed by their lack of rights under serfdom, needed the active help of [Russia's more) fortunate sons .... What was begun must be finished, and finished directly, honorably, openly. This task, it is true, is harder and more complicated than ours was: then all the conscious life of society flowed, if one can put it this way, in one channel; now it has branched out, or is preparing to branch out, as should happen at a more mature age of the state. 7

Turgenev felt that Russian public opinion and the young generation sympathetic to the radical cause (which had repudiated Pushkin and his own novels) was now "maturing," and considered his triumph of r879 a vindication of the liberal ideals of his youth. Turgenev's public feud with Katkov also added drama to his trips to Russia in r879 and r88o and helped throw the novelist and the Pushkin Celebration into the limelight. For Turgenev, the ultraloyalist Katkov, who had abandoned the liberalism they had once shared, had come to personify everything impeding Russia's progress. Turgenev wrote to Fet in r 874 that "all the hatred and scorn left in me I have focused completely onto Mikhail Nikiforovich [Katkov], the most repulsive and harmful person in Russia," and during r879 the novelist's breech with Katkov, which dated back more than ten years, assumed an increasingly bitter and public character. Kova-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

94

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

levsky had pointedly excluded Katkov and his allies from the dinners in Turgenev's honor, in a rehearsal for what was to happen in I SSo, and Katkov had countered with editorials denouncing Turgenev as spiritual father of sedition in Russia. Then in December I879, not long before Turgenev's return to Russia for the Pushkin Celebration, Moskovskie vedomosti's columnist B. M. Markevich (whom Turgenev had lampooned in Virgin Soil) renewed the assault. He accused Turgenev of sympathy for Russian revolutionaries abroad and of "servile" and "ingratiating" behavior toward "a certain [i.e., the radical] part" of Russian youth. 8 Turgenev countered with a rebuttal in Molva, reprinted in February by Vestnik Evropy, which included a frank exposition of Turgenev's liberal position: The convictions I have espoused orally and in the press have not changed an iota in the past forty years; I never hid them at any time or from anyone. In the eyes of our youth (since we are talking about them), no matter what party they may belong to, I have always been and still remain a gradualist" [postepenovets], a liberal of the old cut, in the English, dynastic sense of the word, one who expects reforms only from above-an opponent of revolution on principle, not to speak of the recent horrors. Our youth was right in its evaluation, and I would consider it unworthy of them and of myself to present myself to them in any other light. The ovations that 0ut-of-Towner" [Markevich's pseudonym] mentions were pleasant and dear to me precisely because it wasn't I who came to the young generation ... but because it came to me; these ovations were dear to me as proof of the sympathy being shown toward the convictions to which I have always been faithful, and which I loudly pronounced in the speeches I addressed to those people who were pleased to honor me. 9 11

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

11

Katkov's crude attempts to smear Turgenev backfired and only served to enhance the novelist's stature, both among the more radically oriented segments of the intelligentsia and in aristocratic and court circles as well. Turgenev turned Katkov's personal attacks into a defense of Russian public opinion, defining the situation such that expressions of public support for him would directly signify support for democratic reform. During his trip to Russia of I 879, Turgenev's supporters repeatedly called on him to end his self-imposed exile from Russia and to stay and lead the loyal opposition. Two weeks after leaving Russia he described to his friend Pavel Annenkov how "they begged me in Russia to return, to stay there," not to become a political "leader" but to serve as "a central [rallying] point, a banner."l 0 The invita-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV'S LAST STAND

95

tions to come back clearly flattered Turgenev, and evidently he did consider the offer tentatively. Filled with doubts and melancholy, as he prepared to return to Russia in r88o he wrote somewhat enigmatically (again to Annenkov): "I am going to Russia, not knowing at all when I will come back from there. The reasons pushing me toward this step are various-both personal... and of another kind." "Russia is now living through difficult, dark times," he wrote to Tolstoy. "But at just such a moment it is shameful to be a stranger." 11 While some biographers have claimed that Turgenev's trip to Russia in r88o was primarily motivated by his liaison with the young Petersburg actress Maria Savina, he clearly felt bound to do his duty and give Russia another chance.l2 Upon his return to Russia, Turgenev threw himself into a round of social and literary activities-meeting with editors and writers, dinners, public readings, and other events. He also took a leading role in the OLRS preparations for the Pushkin Celebration, and after its first meeting the commission invited Turgenev to become an official, acting member. He helped acquire Pushkin memorabilia for the exhibit, joined in planning the "literary-musical evenings," and even contributed money when the OLRS ran short. He acted as the society's ambassador at large, writing to invite foreign literary dignitaries to the celebration, and evidently also took a hand in the cabal to blacklist Katkov from the celebration. Last, he consented to write a brochure about Pushkin "for the people," to be delivered as a speech at one of the OLRS public sessions and to be read aloud and distributed free at Moscow's public reading rooms on the day of the unveiling. 13 Turgenev followed the political crisis of early r88o with intense interest and guarded optimism. He endorsed Loris-Melikov's appointment as a progressive step, and with the firing of the despised Dmitrii Tolstoy in April, he became further convinced that (as he wrote Stasiulevich) "decidedly, a strong thaw has begun." 14 He labored to make the Pushkin Celebration a forceful repeat of the "liberal demonstrations" of the year before, to orchestrate an even larger and more unified demonstration of the strength of Russian literature. He urged Annenkov to come to Russia for the celebration, assuring him that ''all bad elements [i.e., Katkov] will be eliminated."lS He informed Gaevsky in Petersburg that the Moscow governor-general Prince Dolgoruky had promised a maximum of free expression in the speeches (i.e., a minimum of censorship), and insisted that "it would

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

96

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

be highly desirable if all literature would group together unanimously at this Pushkin celebration." When he learned that the Petersburg Committee for Aiding Needy Scholars and Literary Men (the so-called Lit Fund) had chosen him, together with Gaevsky, Kraevsky, A. A. Potekhin, and D. V. Grigorovich, as delegate to the celebration, he told Gaevsky that he was "pleased to hear that Petersburg literature wants to move itself to Moscow: everyone must come together, in a whole mass-all separate or belated manifestations are inappropriate."

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Failed Mission to Tolstoy After all of this optimistic planning, Turgenev suffered a major disappointment: he failed to convince Tolstoy to take part in the celebration. Among his other responsibilities, Turgenev had accepted a commission from the OLRS to invite Tolstoy in person when he went to visit him at lasnaia Poliana in early May. The inability of these two great novelists to come to terms over honoring Pushkin marks a significant episode in the history of the celebration and a poignant moment in their careers. Tolstoy's rejection of Turgenev's invitation helps to illuminate the problem of Pushkin's image in 188o, suggesting the vulnerability of Turgenev's liberal "enlightenment" position and dramatically highlighting the tremendous divergence between the two writers' views of art and its social function. Tolstoy's absence at the celebration was conspicuous-especially since the OLRS had included his name on the list of celebrities invited which was released to the press. It was hoped right up to the last moment that Tolstoy might change his mind; to some, his refusal seemed an insulting rejection of the whole enterprise.l 6 Talstay, however, had long stood aloof from literary life in the two capitals, and scorned his intelligentsia critics. Novae vremia commented at the time of Turgenev's visit that "however radical the literary critic-pygmies may be, nevertheless Tolstoy stands like some stone wall that they cannot budge, however much they might scratch at it with their nails. He doesn't even know what they are writing about him, because he doesn't receive newspapers, and doesn't care to read them. He sits alone in his village, contemplating nature and studying man. But be that as it may, he cannot help but respond to the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV'S LAST STAND

97

first folk celebration, a celebration that is growing and growing [in importance]. " 17 Both contemporaries and later critics have tried to understand the specific reasons behind Tolstoy's refusal to take part in the Pushkin Celebration. Some scholars cite a letter of 1908 intended for newspaper publication in which he wrote that" as dear as Turgenev was to me then, and as much as I highly prized and valued (and still value) Pushkin's genius, I refused; I knew that I distressed Turgenev, but I could not do otherwise, because even then such kinds of celebrations seemed to me somehow unnatural-! won't say false-but not commensurate with my spiritual needs." 18 Tolstoy wrote the letter to discourage a celebration planned for his own eightieth birthday, which liberal educators and politicians were hoping to turn into a political demonstration, 19 and in the context of such crude attempts by both intelligentsia activists and the tsarist state to manipulate the Russian classics, which the success of the Pushkin Celebration surely helped inspire, Tolstoy's misgivings are certainly understandable. Although we might not credit him with such prescience as early as r88o, Tolstoy was reiterating a long-standing skepticism toward all public ceremonial and external authority, quite familiar to readers of his novels. Perhaps he had discussed the issue with his extremely conservative friend the poet Afanasii Fet, who even at the time considered the r 88o celebration a brazen attempt by the liberals to use Pushkin for their own ends and a disgraceful profanation of the poet's holy memory.2o

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Turgenev and Tolstoy's Parting of the Ways Tolstoy, however, had come a very long way since the defense of Pushkin and the ideals of high art which he had made in 1859 when he was inducted, along with Turgenev, into the OLRS. Turgenev had helped introduce the young Tolstoy into the Petersburg literary world of the fifties and had considered Tolstoy, ten years his junior, something of a protege. Tolstoy's initial break with the literary world-influenced in part by the cold reception to his induction speech-had been followed by his famous quarrel with Turgenev in r86r, which almost ended in a duel. The two writers broke off all personal relations, and had become reconciled only a couple of years before their meeting in I 88o. The pretext for their rift had been the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

98

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

education of Turgenev's daughter, but the underlying causes had been both personal incompatibility (which both parties recognized) and Tolstoy's increasing dissatisfaction with the liberal enlightenment view of literature and the role of the artist. In response to the radicalization of the literary scene in the early sixties, Turgenev had taken refuge in France, while Tolstoy had removed himself to his country estate. Whereas Turgenev prided himself on his loyalty to the liberal position, Tolstoy's criticism of the modern literary establishment came to focus on the assumption, central to the liberal position, that intelligentsia writers spoke in the name of the Russian people. One of the main targets of War and Peace (r86S-I868) had been those theorists who naively thought to speak in the name of "history" and "progress," and the later parts of Anna Karenina (r874-I877) had turned into a painful catalogue of degenerate modern social and political mores. In its controversial last part, which Katkov had refused to print in his journal Russkii vestnik, Tolstoy had denounced the wave of patriotic feeling that was then sweeping Russia into war with Turkey. He rejected the value of modern "public opinion" and denied that the press represented the true interests of the Russian people, thus antagonizing both the liberals, who were pleased to see the press influencing state policy, and such archconservatives as Katkov, who supported the war and welcomed the upsurge of Russian nationalism. The writing of Anna Karenina had plunged Tolstoy into a deep depression that initiated a thoroughgoing critique of his personal beliefs. In his Confession, a work he had begun in the months before Turgenev's visit, Tolstoy set out some of the initial conclusions he had drawn from his period of spiritual crisis. In the second chapter he completely condemned the Russian literary establishment as morally bankrupt and self-serving, and, even more fundamentally, he challenged that faith in the universality of Russian literature and its eternal power for enlightenment which he had formerly shared with his colleague and which had been associated in his mind with Pushkin. During the course of pedagogical experiments he carried out at his Iasnaia Polyana school for peasant children in the sixties and seventies, Tolstoy had become concerned with finding the proper literature to introduce to uneducated Russians. He asked himself whether or not literature that was directed at a Europeanized intelligentsia

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

99

elite had any value for Russian peasants. In several works from the early eighties, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that all Russian literature of the previous fifty years-including both Pushkin's works and his own-while perhaps aesthetically and artistically accomplished, was "immaterial" to the people, relevant only to the artificially educated, corrupt upper classes. "The narod doesn't accept [Pushkin and his like], 11 he wrote, "because that's not real food-that's only hors d'oeuvres, dessert." 21 Harking back to the radical critics of the sixties who denied Pushkin's "narodnost', 11 Tolstoy drew a sharp distinction between literature for the educated elite and literature for the people.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Problem with Idolizing Pushkin Even though from his youth Tolstoy had loved Pushkin's poetry, in his ruthlessly honest, categorical fashion he was led to reject it, together with his own novels. In fact, by the time of his meeting with Turgenev in r 88o, Tolstoy had already made the decision to abandon his career as a novelist and to devote himself to the quest for philosophical and religious truth. It was in this year that Tolstoy wrote his first major theological work, A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology, and began his study and translation of the Gospels. Like the Nihilists, Tolstoy renounced what he saw as the intelligentsia's hedonistic aestheticism; unlike them, he recognized the great power of art as a moral force and the Russian people's inborn aesthetic need, and he began seriously to ask himself the question "What is art? 11 Both in his subsequent didactic tales and in his writings about aesthetics Tolstoy worked out his own answer, the ultimate fruit of which was the tract by that name. Although completed only in r897, in a real sense What Is ArU represents the culmination of Tolstoy's crisis of the seventies. Tolstoy had begun work on it during the early eighties (as early as r882), and it seems likely from internal evidence that the Pushkin Celebration helped catalyze some of his ideas about the harmfulness of imposing intelligentsia values on the narod. In the seventeenth chapter Tolstoy describes several of the consequences "of society's false attitude toward art" and the "muddle" it creates among children and the childlike Russian peasantry. Celebrating Pushkin serves as a prime example. Society's false attitude,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

lOO

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

he said, is reflected in its excessive idolization of such writers as Pushkin, who are seen by the people as heroes like Hercules or Chril?t:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

When fifty years after Pushkin's death had passed and cheap editions of his works were simultaneously disseminated among the people, and they erected a monument to him in Moscow, I received more than ten letters from peasants asking: why do they extol Pushkin like that? A few days ago a literate townsman who had obviously gone crazy over this question [ochevidno soshedshii s uma na etom voprose] came to me from Saratov, on his way to Moscow to denounce the clergy because they had abetted putting up a "monament" to Mr. Pushkin. Really, one must try to imagine the position of such a person from the narod when he learns from the papers and from rumors that reach him that the clergy, the officials, all the best people in Russia are unveiling a monument, with pomp, to this great man, this benefactor, Russia's glory-to Pushkin, about whom he has so far heard nothing. He reads or hears about it from all sides and presumes that if they are rendering such homage to this person, then he probably did something unusual, a feat of strength, or a good deed. He tries to find out who Pushkin was, and learning that Pushkin wasn't a warrior or commander but a private person and a writer, he comes to the conclusion that Pushkin had to be a saintly man, a teacher of good, and hurries to read or learn of his life and works. But how great must be his confusion when he learns that Pushkin was a man of more than easy morals, that he died in a duel, that is, trying to kill another, and that his entire merit consisted in writing verses about love-and often quite improper verses. 22

Tolstoy here confuses and combines the fiftieth anniversary of Pushkin's death in r887 (at which time the copyright ran out on his works and they flooded the market) with the unveiling of the Pushkin monument at the r88o Pushkin Celebration. The problem with Pushkin which Tolstoy raises is twofold. In the first place, Pushkin is unworthy of idolization; Tolstoy sympathizes with those who condemn both his life and his works as immoral. In the second place, Russian peasants view great men as either saints or war heroes, and the idolization of secular figures such as Pushkin confuses and possibly even corrupts them. Pushkin's works are only comprehensible to a narrow circle of Europeanized Russians, and to impose them on the narod means to undermine Russian values. Literature for the people must function in a fundamentally different way. It must not idolize individuals and glamorize the passing fads of a fashion-conscious society but must serve larger, universal moral truths.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

IOI

These issues probably had not fully crystallized in Tolstoy's mind as early as the Pushkin Celebration itself and likely were not the direct cause for his refusal of Turgenev's invitation. Yet the opening of the monument and the fuss made over Pushkin in r88o clearly seem to have been one of the stimuli to Tolstoy's sweeping revaluation of art. The tremendous attention to Pushkin (in r88o and later) by such leaders of the literary establishment as Turgenev seemed to Tolstoy misplaced. It underscored for him the contradiction of a literary community acting in a vacuum, cut off from the overwhelming majority of the Russian people, who remained largely illiterate and lived by a different, in his opinion, superior and unspoiled, set of spiritual values. At their meeting on May 2-3, r88o, Turgenev evidently tried, as tactfully as he could, to convince Tolstoy to abandon his new theological craze and to return to Russian literature. He took very hard Tolstoy's renunciation of the liberal, "enlightenment" views they had earlier shared and his rejection of the values of European civilization. During their long estrangement, Turgenev had helped promote Tolstoy's works in Europe and continued to extol Tolstoy as a great writer even while he objected to many things in his books. In a letter to Strakhov on May 4, Tolstoy reported somewhat cryptically, and in a distinctly condescending tone, that "I had many interesting conversations with Turgenev. Up to now, if you will forgive me for the presumption, it's always been my experience, thank goodness, that people have said: 'What's Tolstoy doing, working away at some nonsense or other. He ought to be told to stop that nonsense.' And every time it's been the case that the people giving advice have felt ashamed and frightened on their own behalf. I think it was the same with Turgenev too. I found it both painful and comforting to be with him. And we parted amicably." 23 Tolstoy's son later recalled that Turgenev and his father made a special effort to preserve friendly relations, and that they avoided potentially argumentative subjects.24 P. A. Sergeenko asserts in his rather novelistic account of their meeting in r88o that they did sit down on the second day to have it out over the Pushkin Celebration, and that Turgenev left 11 hurt and offended" at Tolstoy's refusaPs Be that as it may, even before his errand to Tolstoy, Turgenev had written Annenkov that he would "hardly manage" to convince Tolstoy to come to Moscow for the celebration. For all their renewed warm feelings, their positions had diverged so sharply as to make any rapprochement unlikely.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

102

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Tolstoy's official biographer and disciple, P. I. Biriukov, noted that the OLRS commission gave Turgenev this "important diplomatic mission" even though they knew of Tolstoy's "negative attitude toward any kind of [literary] celebration or jubilee." The radical journal Delo, Biriukov, and many later scholars such as Ernest Simmons, probably following them, state that Tolstoy immediately and categorically refused the OLRS invitation.26 Yet two days after leaving Iasnaia Poliana Turgenev wrote to Stasiulevich that Tolstoy was "still vacillating," that is, that he had not given a firm yes or no. It is also possible that in asserting Tolstoy's indecision, Turgenev was trying to save face. Sergeenko maintains that Tolstoy's refusal deeply wounded Turgenev and dampened Turgenev's mood throughout the entire Pushkin Celebration.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Turgenev Reconsiders His Own Position It is certainly plausible that Turgenev's failure with Tolstoywhatever the specific content of their talks-helped to focus his own view of the Pushkin Celebration, precipitating a sharp moment of self-realization when he undertook to compose the speech brochure "for the people" which the OLRS had commissioned. Upon leaving Iasnaia Poliana, Turgenev went directly to Spasskoe, arriving there on May 4, and enthusiastically set to work. He wrote to promise Stasiulevich a special foreword to go with the speech when published in Vestnik Evropy, and three days later he reported to the editor that the writing had gone "faster than I expected." It had, however, "turned out in no way for the narod (for whom I am not able to write-and, indeed, they don't even know Pushkin), but for cultured people." He simultaneously informed Iur'ev of his decision not to write the brochure, in surprisingly vehement terms:

It turned out not only not for the narod (you know I immediately rejected this) but also not for gymnasium students. A literary and cultured man wrote it for his colleagues ... It follows that to print my speech separately to disseminate it for free is unthinkable; it would be understandable if my work were meant for the narod; otherwise the proposition would be insulting for the others giving speeches .... I will never agree to have you print my speech alone. You would place me in a false position-and for no reason. If you insist that a brochure be distributed on that day, ask Bartenev or some other person to write a

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

103

short popular biography of six or eight pages .... I implore you not to return to this question, and to consider it closed. Sooner than agree to a separate printing of my speech, I will refuse to take any part in the celebration.27

Perhaps Turgenev told Annenkov that Tolstoy was still vacillating for the same reason he now insisted he had never agreed to do the brochure. Whereas Tolstoy had set out to examine the people's faith, and later to adapt his art to their values, Turgenev held that the people should aspire to the level of European culture represented in Russia's great writers. Turgenev had conceded long before that his works addressed a limited, educated audience, "his own class," and was quite conscious of the distance separating that class from the mass of Russians. In a letter of 1863 to Countess E. Lambert, Turgenev presented his credo as a writer, remarkably consistent with his views of

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

r88o: You are right in saying that I am not a politician, and in asserting that the government has nothing to fear from me; my convictions haven't changed since I was young. But I never practiced politics and I never will: it's alien and uninteresting to me, and I only pay attention to it insofar as it is necessary for a writer whose calling is to sketch pictures of contemporary life. But you are wrong to demand of me and of my literary calling what I cannot give, fruits which don't grow on my tree. I never wrote for the narod. I wrote for that class of the public to which I belong-beginning with "A Huntsman's Sketches" and ending with "Fathers and Sons." ... An artist is often unfree in [choosing] his own offspring .... Everyone does only what he is given to do-but to force oneself is both fruitless and useless. That is why I will never write stories for the narod. For that is needed a completely different way of thinking and character.28

What Turgenev recognized as a limitation of his art-its class character-drove Tolstoy to reject it and the entire literary scene. Turgenev hoped that the narod would in time bridge the cultural abyss dividing it from the intelligentsia and share in European enlightenment, and looked to the day when Russia could enjoy a "normal" intellectual life. His meeting with Tolstoy and the experience of writing his speech, however, drove home once again both the desirability, and the difficulty, of the task.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

104

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Turgenev's Ecstatic Reception in Moscow At the start of the Pushkin Celebration, Turgenev stole the show as champion of the intelligentsia in its "enlightener" role, as heir to Pushkin and, as one journalist put it, "the factual, legitimate, socially recognized, enthroned leader of contemporary literature."29 Given the absence of Saltykov, Goncharov, and Tolstoy, Turgenev's only real rival was Dostoevsky, whose popularity, it is true, was on the upswing, but whose position as intelligentsia spokesman was by no means universally accepted. The mood on the square at the unveiling, as we have seen, was tremendously elated, and when the ceremony ended people crowded around Turgenev shouting and clapping in a show of spontaneous approval-an unheard of event in rank-conscious tsarist Russia. The exhilaration at the unveiling carried over to the Moscow University ceremonial, where Turgenev's appearance produced something approaching hysteria. When Tikhonravov announced that the university had chosen Grot, Annenkov, and Turgenev as "distinguished members," one correspondent reported that the rector "had hardly pronounced Turgenev's name when the whole hall shook with ecstatic shouts and applause. It shook for several minutes. The thunder quieted down, then roared with new energy and force. Everyone rose from their places. They clapped, stamped, cried 'Hurrah!' and 'Bravo!' They reached out in huge masses toward Turgenev, and the young students in the balcony above seemed on the point of tumbling down together with the columns." Then A. A. Saburov, the new minister of education-at the celebration on direct order of the tsar-rose and kissed Turgenev three times in traditional Russian fashion. This, and the fact that Saburov's appointment itself had been widely seen as concession to public opinion, seemed to accord Turgenev an official seal of approval as writer and public hero, as well as give one to the celebration itself. "At that moment the public ovation reached its highest intensity. You could already hear something in the nature of a moan coming from voices that had gone hoarse and broken. People's reddened hands were aching from all the clapping. It was a real apotheosis of the late genius in the person of this living luminary. It was a laying on of hands, turning Turgenev into a public idol in Pushkin's name." 30 Many present felt that the public adulation accorded Turgenev and Dostoevsky reaffirmed the dignity and importance of the writer's

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

IOS

calling, which had been usurped by the critics and demeaned by the state. Novae vremia declared this the "decisive political significance" of the celebration, that "the writer has again come into his rights, again appeared as a political creature." Literature, wrote Petersburgskaia gazeta, had finally earned its place as a "manifestation of public spirit." Kraevsky, who had bucked the censors and printed Odoevsky's moving obituary to Pushkin in r837, argued that literature had always been Russia's best product-above government, trade, industry, science, and education. "For us ... literature was always the best, if not the only refuge of a free spirit."31 Saltykov, even though skeptical about the politics of the celebration, had drafted a statement for the Lit Fund which concluded with the hope that it would be "a celebration not only of the poet whose memory is being honored but of Russian literature as well, and that it will elevate and secure the feeling of respect in society which our literature rightly deserves."32 Historians have recalled the scandal at the duma-sponsored dinner that evening not for Colas's biased report and the uproar in the press it caused, but for Turgenev's spurning of his old enemy Katkov by refusing to drink with him. His refusal to "clink" glasses with Katkov was seen by his supporters as a "feat of civic heroism," a public repudiation of the forces resisting reform by the personification of Russian literature, now restored to its proper civic role. In that sense it was the symbolic triumph of the Russian writer as "political creature," and arguably Turgenev's crowning moment at the Pushkin Celebration. Turgenev's refusal to "clink" glasses may have further added to the tumultuous reception he received at the "literary-musical" presentation which followed the banquet. Nikolai Rubenshtein began the concert by conducting several overtures from operas based on works by Pushkin, and the well-known singers Klimentova and Kamenskaia performed next. Then came several dramatic presentations by the actors Mel'nikov and Samarin and readings by Dostoevsky, Pisemsky, Ostrovsky, Annenkov, Potekhin, and Grigorovich, which were all well received. But when Turgenev's turn came, the shouts and applause, reported S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, were "unending," lasting more than a quarter of an hour. Among the poems Turgenev read was Pushkin's " .. .1 visited anew" (" ... Vnov' ia posetil," 1835, mistakenly known at the time as "Opiat' na rodine," or "In my native land again"), which many took (not all kindly) as a

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

106

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

reference to Turgenev's own situation.33 Turgenev was called back to the stage repeatedly for encores. His rendition of Pushkin's lyric "Cloud" ("Tucha," 1835), reported Nedelia, "threw everyone into indescribable ecstasy," and was repeatedly interrupted (seven times, by one report) for applause. Turgenev's choice of this poem (commonly known by its first line, "Last cloud of a dissipated storm") was also taken by some listeners as an Aesopian reference, in this case to the improved liberal climate in Russia, and others understood it even more explicitly as signifying the dissipation of "Katkov's cloud over the Pushkin Celebration."-' 4 The evening ended with an "apotheosis" of Pushkin, as the performers, to the music of a triumphal march, laid wreaths at the foot of a large bust of the poet that had been set at center stage; as a finale, Turgenev went up, alone, and set his wreath on Pushkin's head. To one observer, the whole evening seemed like a forum for Turgenev to crown himself.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Turgenev's Defense of Art and Aesthetics Turgenev's speech was given at the first public session of the OLRS the next day. It came almost at the end, as the keynote of the session. It was awaited with great anticipation. Nikolai Strakhov wrote that "everyone felt that the majority had selected Turgenev as the point to which all their stored-up enthusiasm could be directed and given vent .... They honored Turgenev as if they were recognizing him as the main representative of Russian literature, even as the direct and worthy heir to Pushkin. And since Turgenev was the most distinguished representative of Westernism at the celebration, it was expected that this literary trend would gain the chief role and victory in the upcoming intellectual tournament."35 As if in response to Tolstoy, Turgenev attempted in his speech to answer the questions Why does Russia love Pushkin? and What does it mean to be a national poet? Turgenev's was a careful, well-considered defense of Pushkin's right to a monument, an attempt to explain why "all educated Russia" sympathized with the celebration, and why so many of the nation's "best people, representatives of the land, the government, academia, literature, and art" had all gathered in Moscow to pay "a tribute of grateful love" to Pushkin. Turgenev began by briefly defining the central role of art in human society, setting forth several basic propositions of Romantic aesthetics, which had been staples of the intelligentsia view of literature since

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

107

Belinsky (whom Turgenev praised by name in the speech as "the main, original interpreter of Pushkin"). Only when the Stone Age savage scratched the head of a bear or an elk on a bit of bone did he truly become a human being, said Turgenev, and "only when by the creative strength of its elect a people achieves full, conscious, unique expression in its art, in its poetry, does it thus declare its definitive right to its own place in history. It receives its spiritual physiognomy and its voice-and it enters the fraternity of other peoples who recognize it .... The art of a people is its own living soul, its thought, its tongue in the highest sense of the word; and having achieved its full expression, it becomes the achievement of all humanity."36 Without negating the importance of religious, political, or other branches of a people's creativity, he said, only art can give a nation its permanent place in history, because poetry represents its "resonant, living, thinking soul, its undying soul ... [which] can outlive the physical existence of its body, its people." And it was Pushkin who gave Russia poetry. Pushkin was, continued Turgenev, echoing Belinsky's well-known formula, Russia's "first artist-poet," the first to give Russian self-consciousness artistic embodiment. The problem of defining Pushkin's "narodnost'" and his relation to the masses of uneducated Russians occupied the next part of Turgenev's speech. Adopting Belinsky's distinction between narodnyi ("folk") and natsional'nyi ("national") poets, Turgenev argued that Pushkin could not be called "narodnyi" since the narod remained in ignorance of him. But this was something Pushkin shared with Goethe, Shakespeare, and other great poets of Europe, explained Turgenev; nowhere does the "simple folk" know its writers. These great writers are read, he said, "not by the narod but by the nation"; "they are the summit toward which one must rise." Because art is "the elevation of life into an ideal," it will take time and effort for the simple folk to understand and appreciate it. Here was Turgenev's basic answer to Tolstoy, a reiteration of the views in which Tolstoy himself had once believed. For those like Turgenev who maintained that the Pushkin Celebration demonstrated the intelligentsia's right to represent society and, by extension, the nation as a whole, Pushkin personified the nation's true "voice" and the ideal to which the uncultured narod should aspire. Turgenev's view of art, familiar to all members of the intelligentsia, represented a kind of secularized, enlightenment religion based on aesthetics. Art embodies a people's highest ideals, its fullest selfexpression, its claim to earthly immortality. It is the cultural stan-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I08

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

dard to which the people must aspire; and it is the role of the intelligentsia, headed by its "elect/' its poets, to lead them there. Great art is an eternal ideal-not divisible, as Tolstoy would have it, into art of the elite and art of the people; differences between the ideals of intelligentsia and narod are those of degree, of educational level, and not of kind. There is only one standard of "culture/' which Russia and all peoples share with the West.

Pushkin's Role in Russian Literature and Society

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

For all his love for Pushkin, however, at the end of his speech Turgenev hesitated to rank him with the greatest, "universal" European national poets-with Shakespeare, Goethe, and Homer. Pushkin's historical role, he said, had been colossal: "To him alone fell two tasks, which in other countries [are often] divided by a whole century or longer-and these were to establish the language and to create a literature" (345 ). But Pushkin "could not do everything." For all his greatness, his profound Russianness, the profound truth of his art (which Turgenev said his friend Prosper Merimee considered its characteristic featureL Pushkin had died young, before fulfilling his enormous potential.37 Having asserted Pushkin's germinal role as Russia's first true poet and his right to the title of "national poet/' Turgenev turned to the question of Pushkin's reputation. Why had the great poet fallen from public favor? The reasons, Turgenev said, did not have to do with "the judgments of fools/' as Pushkin suggested in the sonnet "To a Poet" (r83o), but rather lay in fate itself, in the historical development of society, in the conditions in which a new life was being born, as a literary epoch was becoming a political one. New strivings and unprecedented, irresistible new demands arose, unexpected, yet for all their unexpectedness, legitimate; questions came up that could not be left unanswered ... That was not a time interested in poetry and art [Ne do poezii, ne do khudozhestva stalo togda] . ... Art, having established its right to citizenship and the indubitability of its existence with Pushkin's works and the language he had created, now began to serve other needs, just as necessary for the social mechanism. (347-48)

Unused to literature, Russia had at first idolized Pushkin and put poetry on a pedestal; then, after Belinsky, Pushkin had been deni-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

109

grated, and art made to serve narrow political goals. But now, finally, things would be different, Turgenev asserted: youth is returning to reading and studying Pushkin .... We cannot but rejoice in this return to poetry. We especially rejoice because our young people are returning to it not like repentant people, who, disillusioned in their hopes and wearied by their own mistakes, seek refuge and solace in what they had rejected. Rather, we see in this return a symptom of at least some satisfaction; we see some proof that at least some of the goals for which it was considered not only permissible but necessary to sacrifice everything not aiding the cause and to force all of life into one groove, that these some few goals are recognized to have been attained, and that the future promises the attainment of others; and that nothing now prevents poetry, of which Pushkin is our main representative, from taking its legitimate place among the other legitimate manifestations of public life. There was a time when belleslettres served as almost the only expression of that life; then came a period when it almost disappeared from the arena ... The former role was too broad; the latter was narrowed to nothingness; having found its natural boundaries, poetry will become firmly established. (348-49)

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

While Turgenev was unwilling to rank Pushkin a "universal [vsemirnyij" poet, he noted that the current return to poetry and the recognition of its lawful place in society gave hope that such a poet would soon appear. He concluded his speech with another hope, addressed to Pushkin's future readers, reiterating, as if in final answer to Tolstoy, his faith in the enlightening power of art: As it has been said of Shakespeare, that everyone who becomes literate must become his new reader, so we may hope that every descendant who stops here before this statue with love, understanding the significance of that love, will prove in that way that he, like Pushkin, has become more Russian and more educated, and a freer person. This last should not surprise you, ladies and gentlemen! Poetry has a liberating power, because it raises us up. Let us also hope that in the not too distant future even the sons of our simple folk, which now does not read our poet, will begin to understand what that name meansPushkin!-and that they will repeat consciously that which we recently happened to overhear from unconsciously babbling lips: "This is a monument to our teacher!" (349-50)

As Turgenev himself characterized it, his speech was addressed by "a literary and cultured man" to "his colleagues." He did not speak down to his audience-condescending to explain Pushkin to the unlettered masses or to gymnasium students-but addressed a closeknit brotherhood of equals, analyzing their shared love for a great

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I IO

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

poet and for art. The intimate tone of the speech, presented to the hermetic world of the Russian letters, matched its heartfelt but unspectacular claims for Pushkin's Russian-but not universalgenius, and his hope for the future. It was a carefully reasoned, elegant, simple, and unpretentious eulogy to the poet. Turgenev's deep appreciation for Pushkin showed through clearly, and his speech was recognized as a serious and subtle critical statement, yet it did not satisfy the general desire either for a forceful account of the poet's importance or for a significant political message, and failed to supply a focal point for the celebration. After all the talk about a "showdown" between the Slavophile and liberal Westernizer camps, the euphoria of the unveiling, Turgenev's ecstatic reception at the university and his public snub of Katkov, the speech itself came as somewhat of an anticlimax. Delivered in a weak and high-pitched, by all accounts unimpressive, voice, which broke into falsetto during moments of agitation, the speech itself, observed Kovalevsky, was "too subtle and intelligent to be generally appreciated" and had been "directed more at the mind than the emotions of the crowd." Strakhov reported that Turgenev's reasoning about how to rank Pushkin "and similar things were not to some people's liking. A feeling of some dissatisfaction, of vague vexation spread through a group of active participants in the celebration. "38 Dostoevsky wrote home to his wife that night that Turgenev's speech represented a "denigration" of Pushkin because it had tried to take away Pushkin's title of national poet; he sat up most of the night in nervous expectation, poring over his own speech for the next day. Turgenev himself admitted in a letter to Savina on June I I that his speech "did not make a big impression on the public." He returned to France at the end of the month.

What Turgenev Deleted from the Speech Unknown to his audience, at perhaps the most crucial juncture in his speech, his evaluation of the current political scene, Turgenev had made an important excision. He did so on the advice of his friends from Vestnik Evropy. As soon as he had finished writing the speech, Turgenev had sent it to Stasiulevich, asking him to review the passages he planned to leave out of the spoken version, giving him "the right, in case of need, to make fitting changes. Be so kind as

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV'S LAST STAND

III

to go over it together with A. N. Pypin, and if Annenkov has arrived by then, it would be quite marvelous-to such a triumvirate I would entrust my head, not only my writing." 3 9 Stasiulevich had been Turgenev's editor ever since his break with Katkov in the late sixties, and along with Annenkov and the other collaborators on Vestnik Evropy such as Pypin, they formed a definite literary-political bloc. During the previous decade, along with Vestnik Evropy's own brand of "Westernizing," nonpopulist, so-called laissez-faire liberalism, the journal had also promoted the Annenkov-Turgenev view of Pushkin. Annenkov published his biography A. S. Pushkin in the Alexandrine Epoch in the journal in I873 and I874, and timed his article "A. S. Pushkin's Social Ideals" to coincide with the Pushkin Celebration. 40 During the months leading up to the celebration, the journal featured Annenkov's memoir "The Remarkable Decade," a sympathetic portrait of the "Westernizers" of the forties, whose publication Turgenev saw as a victory for the liberal cause.4l In I878 Vestnik Evropy published a selection of Pushkin's letters to his wife, with a short introduction by Turgenev, and the journal also defended Annenkov's work on the I8S 5 edition of Pushkin's works, which Pushkin's latest editor P.A. Efremov had viciously criticized, failing to acknowledge the tremendous debt he owed his predecessor. Virtually alone of all the Russian press, Vestnik Evropy had supported Virgin Soil in I877, and it was here that Turgenev's speech on Pushkin was eventually printed. Hence it was natural that Turgenev would entrust the editing of his speech to his friends. The important cut Turgenev made on their advice followed the statement that "in epochs of a people's life that are called transitional, the mission of the thinking person, the true citizen of his homeland, is to go forward, despite the difficulty and often the dirt on the path, but to proceed, without losing sight even for a moment of those basic ideals on which is built the entire daily life of society, of which he is a living member." Lavrov commented that these were words to which any Russian revolutionary could subscribe. 42 But the really sensitive part-the part that was eliminated-went as follows: The business of the ruling power, a power that understands and is conscious of its ideals, is to direct people along the [proper] path, to end irreversible and therefore senseless deviations, to restrain even the most honest of urges-or to give in to them at the proper time, recognizing their right and usefulness. And therefore-glory to our govern-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I 12

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

ment, which from the start of the present reign has understood its historical role and taken the path of transformation, and by this strengthened and encouraged Russia's growth! And even though deeply regrettable events have in recent times retarded this forward motion so much so as to seem to have made the government come to a halt, as if in confusion before all this evil that has burst into the open, we are still overjoyed to note that right now, at the moment when a statue to our poet is being erected, trust in the government which has practically been lost is now reviving; its summons to society, to those healthy forces without which no living organism is thinkable, has now been heard. 43

Perhaps Turgenev's friends considered the passage too overtly political, too direct, and unbefitting for the occasion. Perhaps, as Turgenev's Soviet editor N. V. Izmailov suggests, they did not want to make such an "advance" of praise to the government before it had granted real reforms. This line of thought suggests that Turgenev wished to avoid being politically compromised in the eyes of the rest of the intelligentsia-a dilemma similar to that many Russian intellectuals now face under Gorbachev. Turgenev was caught in the classic bind of Russian moderates: desirous of assuming political responsibility, yet forced to act under constraint and continually to prove themselves politically reliable to the state, on the one hand, and politically independent to the public, on the other. Although it is difficult even now to balance the objective content of Turgenev's speech against its public reception in judging its literary merits, the deletion clearly suggests that Turgenev and his friends purposefully blunted its basic political thrust.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Limits of Turgenev's Liberalism While the speech's muted optimism may have better corresponded to Turgenev's hope for moderation and normality than a more strident political manifesto would have done, moderation was not the order of the day-as the spectacular success of Dostoevsky's speech the next day was to prove. What contemporaries felt as Turgenev's excessively judicious tone may also have reflected a lingering unease about the tenuous position of Russian letters, and an uncertainty about liberalism's immediate prospects for success. Turgenev's "liberalism" was founded on a series of premises that were by no means uncontested, and which might even seem inherently or potentially

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV'S LAST STAND

I I

3

contradictory. First of all, it depended upon a basic recognition of free speech, and the intelligentsia's right to influence Russian political life-ideas implicit in Turgenev's view of the legitimacy of Russian society's changing interpretations of Pushkin and explicit in the passage Turgenev and his friends saw fit to delete. Such an essential "middle ground" for pluralistic discourse was by no means guaranteed, however, and indeed, to Turgenev, Katkov and what he represented threatened the very possibility of democratic tolerance. In a polarized field, the assertion of pluralism is forced into self-defeating either/or alternativesi hence in order to defend free speech, Turgenev found it necessary to deny it to its enemies. In the second place, Turgenev's failed mission to Tolstoy and distress over writing a brochure for the narod must have driven home to Turgenev once again the intelligentsia's isolation. Turgenev's speech argued that Pushkin represents the single (Europocentric) ideal for the people, and that contemporary Russian society, as interpreted by artists who embody that ideal, sanctions a return to Pushkin-theses that are essentially hegemonic in social, aesthetic, and ultimately political terms. In order to defend free speech, Turgenev must claim the right to speak for others, in the name of a future cultural and social unity. The hope for class "reconciliation," for a merger of intelligentsia and narod, represented for many contemporaries the great promise of the Pushkin Celebration. In fact, on the previous day, somewhat carried away by the excitement at the unveiling, several correspondents had been moved to declare that the cherished moment was actually at hand. They asserted that what they had seen that day proved the possibility, even the imminence, of the narod's merging with the intelligentsia. "It was as if the little handful of intelligenty had dissolved in the spontaneous current of the wave of people," wrote Molva. Many quoted Pushkin's "I have erected a monument to myself ... " (two couplets of which, in Zhukovsky's revised version, had been carved onto the monument's pedestal) in order to declare that the poet's dream of popular recognition, which Turgenev understood to be a task for future generations, had already come true. An anonymous columnist who signed himself "One of the Public" declared that Pushkin's "instinctual effect" on the unenlightened masses (the "temnyi narod") had begun to give them some idea of Pushkin's great importance even without knowing his works.44 Such lyrical and mystical pronouncements naturally provoked skepti-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I I

4

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

cism, and one writer admitted afterward that he and others had been so moved by the scene that "we idealized it, projecting our own emotions onto this crowd of thousands."45 Turgenev, however, while sharing the dream, was far from idealizing the practical reality, and his speech, while asserting the ideal of art and Pushkin's role as "teacher," acknowledged the still great distance that separated his intelligentsia audience from the rest of the Russian people. On a more personal level, an article printed in a Russian emigre paper in Paris after Turgenev's death suggests a connection between Turgenev's sense of social isolation and the ultimate impotence of liberal ideology, which together produced a kind of psychological malaise. The article quotes him as saying, "We, that is, I and my like-minded associates, are honest and sincere liberals and desire the triumph of prosperity, truth, and freedom in Russia. We are ready to work a lot to achieve these goals, but all of us, as many as there are, all good and unselfish people, cannot resolve to risk even the most insignificant bit of our peace of mind, because we have neither the temperament nor civic courage .... What can be done, we must admit that faintheartedness [malodushie] is inherent in us." 46 Although the article may not be a fully reliable source, it does not contradict what we know about Turgenev's perennially pessimistic attitude toward Russian politics. The quotation probably dates from after Alexander Il's assassination, so we cannot consider it hard evidence of Turgenev's attitude in I88o. Yet considering the circumstances, it does seem plausible that Turgenev's lack of ultimate success at the Pushkin Celebration may at least to some extent be attributed to what Turgenev himself later felt to be his own inner lack of firmness. In retrospect, Turgenev's fate at the Pushkin Celebration recalls that of the paradigmatic Turgenevian protagonist who after an initial success (e.g., facing down Katkov) suffers ignominious defeat because of a failure to act decisively, and, eclipsed by some more crude but energetic rival (e.g., Dostoevsky), slips quietly from public view.

Mikhailovsky's Critique of Turgenev and Liberalism While Turgenev's speech was recognized as a major statement about Pushkin, it hardly generated much reaction in the press,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

I I

5

mostly because the press was taken up with responding to Dostoevsky's apocalyptic pronouncements. The most serious criticism came from Saltykov's Otechestvennye zapiski, where the critic N. K. Mikhailovsky presented a remarkable analysis of the political stakes involved in the Pushkin Celebration and set forth a frank discussion of the ideological crisis contemporary Populists were facing in their choice between liberalism and terror. Like Tolstoy, Mikhailovsky was wary of a public opinion that did not truly represent the narod, but he was nevertheless intrigued by the possibility of a new political realignment in the country which the event seemed to signal. From the start Saltykov had been highly skeptical about the Pushkin Celebration, and indeed the whole idea of celebrating Pushkin discomfited the legal radicals, who were committed to supporting only that art which directly served social progress and who were forced to live down the radical attacks of the I86os against Pushkin. Heir to N. A. Nekrasov's Sovremennik, which had been closed by the government in I866, Otechestvennye zapiski became the self-conscious standard-bearer of the traditions of the sixties. Populist writers such as Gleb Uspensky and N. N. Zlatovratsky, who published their stories and sketches in Otechestvennye zapiski, disdained artistic craft on principle in favor of sociological analysis-which made their works topical, but bad art. Similarly, Mikhailovsky, the journal's illustrious critic and sometime coeditor, valued the ideologically correct over the aesthetically successful in his criticism. Saltykov, too sick or perhaps unwilling to attend himself, originally asked Uspensky to go to Moscow to cover the holiday and to represent the journal together with his coeditor G. Z. Eliseev. Uspensky declined to be an official delegate but agreed to go to "describe and witness" the celebration. 47 His "letters from Moscow" on the celebration in Otechestvennye zapiski's June issue took a distinctly skeptical view of the proceedings, but Saltykov still considered them too positive-especially in their description of Turgenev's and Dostoevsky's speeches. His subsequent article, which harshly ridiculed Dostoevsky, also failed to satisfy Saltykov. Uspensky complained in a letter to M. I. Petrunkevich that Saltykov did not want him to continue his series on the celebration and that the editor had told him "that this was no Pushkin Celebration, but a celebration of Turgenev and Dostoevsky-and he hates them."48 Saltykov in turn wrote to Mikhailovsky complaining that Uspensky "had not figured

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I I

6

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

out that both Dostoevsky and Turgenev are duping the public, and filching [eskamotiruiut] the Pushkin Celebration for their own interests," and asked Mikhailovsky to familiarize himself with the speeches and respond to them for the July issue.49 Since the political crisis had begun in the late I 8yos, Mikhailovsky had held a key position between the moderate liberal and radical revolutionary camps. He was virtually the only person "with sufficient stature among both legal and illegal publicists to serve as bridge between the reformists and the revolutionaries" 5 0-a position analagous to that of Turgenev, although farther to the left on the political spectrum. Mikhailovsky straddled the fence between the legal and the underground press, contributing to both. During the wave of assassinations that had followed the famous trial of the terrorist Vera Zasulich in April 1878, Mikhailovsky had taken a prominent stand in the debates about what course the revolutionary movement should take. After the Zasulich affair he wrote an illegal pamphlet calling for the tsarist government to bow to public opinion and grant a constitution and a national assembly [zemskii sobor], and during the next year he entered into a polemic with the "Executive Committee" of the newly reorganized Land and Freedom group on the pages of its own underground journal. Whereas the leaders of the movement put forward a romantic, anarchist faith in the efficacy of terrorism, Mikhailovsky argued for the adoption of a concrete political program, something many radicals considered a deviation or even a betrayal of populist ideals. 51 Neither Saltykov nor Mikhailovsky, however, considered the political crisis of February over, and both grew increasingly impatient with and wary of Loris-Melikov. In an underground publication of June I, Mikhailovsky denounced LorisMelikov's two-faced tactic of generously promising reform on the one hand and refining his methods of repression against opposition forces on the other.S2 Saltykov's distrust of Loris-Melikov's policy, which he called "the wisdom of the genuine biblical serpent," centered on his lack of faith in the liberals. He apparently worried that they would go along with Loris-Melikov to the point that the entire opposition movement would be undermined without concrete political gains, at the same time as the more radical legal journals such as Otechestvennye zapiski would be squeezed out. 53 Whereas most critics faulted Turgenev's speech for its moderation and restraint, Mikhailovsky found it excessively optimistic. In his

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

117

article on the Pushkin Celebration published in July, Mikhailovsky disputed what he felt was Turgenev's overly positive assessment of Russia's current position. Mikhailovsky considered Turgenev's speech the most sober and sincere at the celebration but disagreed with what he felt was the heart of his thesis-the alleged "return to Pushkin." He cited the passage from the speech in which Turgenev spoke of society's political demands being partly satisfied and its concurrent return to poetry (quoted in part above). Mikhailovsky denied both propositions. The present is "a time of complete indifference to Pushkin/' he insisted, or

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

at least up until the Pushkin Celebration. I don't know how it will be later. ... Not one of the events that has shaken Russian society in recent times has recalled nor could recall Pushkin.... Have the "unprecedented, irresistible new demands" really been satisfied? Has it changed from a political epoch into a literary one, or have both these spheres somehow merged into a higher unity of universal, harmonious fullness? ... Mr Turgenev knows as well as I or any other person with eyes to see and ears to hear that our epoch is still primarily political, even perhaps too one-sidedly political, and that our life flows on even more anxiously than at other times. 54 Mikhailovsky judged Turgenev's assertions to be purely his own subjective opinion, not corresponding to reality. He speculated that the great ovations accorded Turgenev in 1879 had perhaps misled the novelist into thinking that Russian society had "returned to art." But in 1879 Turgenev had seemed to understand that his reception merely presented a convenient opportunity-as did the Pushkin Celebration, in Mikhailovsky's view-for Russians, "who for years and years have waited for the chance, to publicly, loudly, and freely declare their own existence." Now Turgenev seemed to confuse the temporary elation of an inexperienced "crowd [tolpa]" with a substantive change in the literary-and political-situation. "Pushkin was the pretext, symbol, cloak-what you will, only not the immediate hero of the celebration"; "people who constantly move in the sphere of ideas and public affairs naturally must either manufacture something for themselves to make a fuss over or latch onto something or other ready-made." 55 Paradoxically, Mikhailovsky was criticizing Turgenev and the liberals for trying to do with the Pushkin Celebration essentially the same thing that the radical literary critics had tried to do with Pushkin in the sixties, only in reverse.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I I

8

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Populism versus Liberalism The crux of the problem hinged on the new role envisaged or implied for the intelligentsia. Whereas the "thinking people" of the sixties (i.e., the radicals) whom Turgenev mentioned in his speech had believed that a small elite could determine Russia's correct path through reason, the Populists had renounced such a role in order to serve the narod. Mikhailovsky, however, did not see (at least, not on the basis of the Pushkin Celebration) that the Russian educated public was in a position to take on a true leadership role, as Turgenev and many in the Russian press claimed. The reissuing of Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech in the August edition of Diary of a Writer moved the critic to reexamine the problem. In a remarkable confession, Mikhailovsky explained why the Populist intelligentsia had renounced the kind of power the liberals demanded for themselves. The Populists had reasoned that

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

freedom is a great and attractive idea, but we don't want freedom if, as it has in Europe, it will only increase our age-old debt to the narod .... Freedom as an unconditional principle is a poor guide .... Full economic freedom means in essence only the unbridling of large economic forces and the actual slavery of the weak .... We [the Populists] began to work, heart and soul, in the dark of night, when it wasn't proper to speak about the charms of free institutions-and to think about them merely for ourselves for the sake of argument was perhaps possible, but boring .... Skeptical toward the principle of freedom, we were not ready to solicit any rights for ourselves at all-not only no privileges, which I need not even mention, but not even the most elementary articles of what they used to call natural law. In the juridicial sphere we were prepared to be content to live on locusts and wild honey and to take all kinds of hardship upon ourselves. 56

Mikhailovsky realized, like the Populists, that economic freedom (i.e., capitalism) spelled "the unbridling of large economic forces and the slavery of the weak" and that its counterpart, political freedom (e.e., parliamentarianism) would be "powerless to change the interrelationships" of these forces, although it could expose and sharpen them. The Populists, he continued, had rejected European-style parliamentary democracy in the name of a "higher order" that would serve the narod and not bypass them in the interests of the bourgeoisie. But the unchecked growth of agricultural capitalism had shaken the Populists' romantic faith in the obshchina, and their direct confrontation with the established power structure in the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

II9

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

countryside had stripped them of their naive ideas about political change. The Populists had assumed, said Mikhailovsky, that "some elements of the current system, strong either in their power or by weight of their numbers, would take it upon themselves to blaze a new path" to a better system. Mikhailovsky felt far from sure that it was even within the government's power to alter the distribution of power in the countryside. Bitter experience suggested that even the central government was not strong enough to break the alliance between the kulaks, or rich peasants, and local government that ruled there. Some definite new political action was needed to break the impasse. Mikhailovsky warned that such naive hopes for improvement as the Populists had entertained were fading rapidly, "one might say daily. Practice reduces it mercilessly, and our program becomes correspondingly more complicated; new means must be worked out to attain the same final aim." 5 7 Mikhailovsky was warning the government that time was running short, but he was also admonishing the revolutionaries to adopt a specifically political program. The romantic, altruistic populism of the early seventies now seemed naive, an insufficient answer to Russia's problems and ultimately self-defeating as a course of action; and so, we might add, did the utopian faith in terrorism alone. Mikhailovsky's populism was slowly turning into liberalism, a change some other former Populists proclaimed openly and explicitly. One proponent of such a move declared: We Populists, we consistent supporters of the obshchina, we who may be called primarily lovers of the narod-we state that before the "question of the people" can be solved, the "question of the intelligentsia" must be. This is the question of our most elementary rights, our intellectual and educational qualifications [tsenz]. Only a free intelligentsia, fully armed with its own rights and free speech, can merge its own interests with those of the people, and boldly and fruitfully take up the resolution of those problems which have become logically inescapable for this generation. "The question of the people" was and is "the question of the intelligentsia." This is the whole essence of the matter. It is not possible to get around it. Only freedom and a recognition of the intelligentsia's rights can guarantee the speedy and fruitful resolution of the "question of the people."ss

Mikhailovsky's ingrained dislike for liberalism, however, and his chronic mistrust of the intelligentsia kept him from such an outright

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I 20

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

rejection of populism. But for all its well-perceived shortcomings, parliamentary reform, or at least a basic guarantee of the rule of law, seemed to promise the best means for transferring power to those forces which could defend the narod's practical interests. Mikhailovsky concluded that "if we are indeed on the eve of a new era, then we need, first of all, light, and light means unconditional freedom of thought and word, and unconditional thought and word is impossible without personal inviolability, and personal inviolability demands guarantees. What sort of guarantees these will be-European, Mrican, be they Lithuanian or Russian-isn't it all the same, as long as they are guarantees? We must only remember that the new era will quickly decay if the narod has nothing to gain or lose by it." 5 9 The populist dream, he argued, had no chance without a political system that guaranteed "personal inviolability." Despite his obvious discomfort with speaking of "European, African, or Lithuanian" liberal reforms, Mikhailovsky's position coincided with that of Golos, which also insisted that "the basis of liberalism is respect for the human personality; in the name of this, every truly liberal party strives to attain for the individual the guarantee of his rational freedom."60

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

"A Complete and Permanent Pushkin Celebration" t The success of the Pushkin Celebration-which the liberal press wanted to use as an argument for constitutional reform-aroused ambivalent feelings in Mikhailovsky. Like Saltykov, he had inherited a strong streak of antiintellectualism from both the radicals of the sixties and the Populists and put his hopes for the future primarily on liberals within the government and the zemstvos, from which the tsar also hoped to find support-rather than on the intelligentsia. However, despite all the pretense, hypocrisy, and sheer nonsense Mikhailovsky perceived in the newspaper accounts of the celebration, he confessed that "a small bit of my soul was there in Moscow." The significance of the celebration, he felt, had been artificially blown out of porportion because of Russians' lack of experience in public matters. He wrote that "there is nothing to be surprised about if free and public noisemaking has an exaggerated charm for us, if we give in to it, so to speak, in vain, primarily for ourselves,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

TURGENEV 1 S LAST STAND

121

and not in entirely fitting situations. At the Pushkin Celebration, the public naturally expected to hear the kind of thing it couldn't otherwise hear in other places, such as the press .... What we can't hear in the press, the things 'we haven't even been able to sing sotto voce'that is very well known. It was precisely that 'well known' but constantly silenced thing that the public was waiting for." 61 But nevertheless, the Pushkin Celebration might indeed help convince the government "of the wrongness of the policy of hampering thought and word, which misdirected zealots urged upon it." The fear that, let loose, a free press would lead to revolution and terror had proven false. That is what the Pushkin Celebration demonstrated: "the bonds were loosened, but literature in its overwhelming majority only 'thanks, accepts, and speaks no word of contradiction'-displaying, perhaps, even an excess of diligence in that direction." For all Mikhailovsky's reservations about the holiday, he still clearly sympathized with the long-restrained desires of the "crowd." He found Katkov's move toward conciliation significant, even if false and duplicitous-insofar as it demonstrated the conservative faction in retreat. "It seems to me that he and Mr. Dostoevsky think that something similar to the Pushkin Celebration will be repeated, not only today and tomorrow but again and again, and that, if you please, a complete and permanent Pushkin Celebration will begin-and that therefore it is wise to bow before events and cover all the bases." If only for these indications that the political climate was improving, Mikhailovsky found "some satisfaction" in the Pushkin Celebration. But just as he had taken Turgenev to task for wishful thinking, he felt it necessary at the end to caution his readers not to think that he was "burdened with excessive optimism. No, I know that tomorrow the weather may change, but, given the present circumstances, Messrs. Katkov and Dostoevsky, perhaps, are not mistaken. Meanwhile, we will grow accustomed little by little to expressing our feelings, and to choosing the objects of our celebrations and hostilities, learn to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, and thenvogue la galeref"62

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

5 Dostoevsky "Hijacks" the Celebration

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

If the initial excitement generated by the Pushkin Celebration had been sudden and unexpected, the phenomenal reaction to Dostoevsky's speech on its third and last day exceeded the wildest imagination. Considering the "liberal" political message many derived from the celebration, the speech and its success seemed like a striking anomaly. Even while he proclaimed Pushkin's universal genius and his messianic message-in stark contrast to Turgenev's much more modest assessment-Dostoevsky summoned the intelligentsia not to the assertion of its rights but to renunciation and self-effacement. Dostoevsky turned the prevailing notion of the celebration's importance on its head, and left his ideological opponents-and later historians-asking what precisely his speech meant, and why it had had such an overwhelming effect on those who heard it. The "Holy Week" of the Russian Intelligentsia Dostoevsky's speech climaxed the excitement that had been building since the start of the celebration. A feuilletonist writing in Nedelia remarked in early July that to look back at the many unimpressive printed speeches and the gushing press reports from the celebration, someone who had not been there might conclude that everyone in Moscow had simply gone crazy: "Well, perhaps, that's the way it really was-but for at least one time in my life I'm not opposed to going crazy like that! ... The Pushkin Celebration was

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

DOSTOEVSKY

11

HIJACKS 11 THE CELEBRATION

123

the single moment when the intelligentsia could say that 'today it's our turn to celebrate' [the concluding words of Ostrovsky's toast], and look how passionately they did celebrate it!" 1 The "Pushkin days/' lyricized Golos, were "like a dream .... It was as if some kind of light rays shone over Moscow the whole time .... The happiness of inner spiritual bliss that every one of us experienced attuned our hearts and minds to the most elevated of motives." Mikhnevich noted the "spiritual electrification" that the celebration produced in people, a feeling that reading the speeches alone could not even convey the hundredth part. At the Pushkin Celebration, he said, people had lived "completely, with every fiber of the inner 'I'; in these few days we experienced more of every kind of good than you would otherwise experience in a whole year!" Many witnesses said that what had happened was indescribable, because-as Peterburgskaia gazeta editorialized-"there are states in which the emotions one feels cannot be rendered into any words." Moments of enthusiasm like the opening of the monument, wrote Russkii kur'er, simply "do not lend themselves to description." Nedelia referred to the celebration as "days of a magically poetic fairy tale," and others spoke of "days of holy ecstasy," Moscow's "red-letter days" and "the 'holy week' of the Russian intelligentsia."2 Both the ceremonial-the unveiling of Pushkin's "bronze countenance [lik-the word used to describe a face on an icon]," and the unusual excitement that accompanied it suggest that the celebration touched deep cultural chords, akin to those struck on the most important of all Russian religious holidays, Easter. Several of those who had at first been highly critical of the holiday underwent what might be described as a kind of religious conversion, a spiritual rebirth. The correspondent from Nedelia, who admitted that at the start he had been "in the sourest mood" and had felt as if he "had been dragged forcibly" to Moscow, described the "miraculous" effect of the celebration on its participants: "It was as if the atmosphere surrounding the celebration caught fire and was lit by an iridescent radiance. One's heart beat faster, more joyfully, one's thoughts became bright and lucid, and one's whole being opened up to impressions and emotions that would have been incomprehensible and strange given other less elevating circumstances. Some kind of moral miracle took place, a moral shock that stirred one's innermost soul."3 "No casuist could do what genius has done," remarked I. A. Batalin, editor of Peterburgskaia gazeta, describing the scene at

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

124

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Strastnoi monastery on June 6. "The flower of the Russian intelligentsia, the flower of our fatherland's literature and society-everyone, like one man, as if by instinct bowed their heads and crossed themselves. If even Voltaire had been in attendance in the church, he too would have been overcome by a reverential feeling of piety." 4 This religious "subtext" to the celebration helped amplify the already existing hopes for a radical change in Russian life to extravagant, even apocalyptic proportions. The critic Aleksei Veselovsky declared that with Pushkin, Russian literature had truly become part of European culture. "It was just as if some kind of barrier fell-and suddenly an abyss of sunlight, of life, of wide open spaces, grumbled forth from under the dark vaults, from which before had exuded only the dankness of a dungeon." Molva could only compare the opening of the monument "to beneficent dew, to a life-giving ray of sunlight, to a rush of fresh streams of air" into stagnant Russia. Columnist for Sovremennye izvestiia "Ade" rhapsodized that the day of the unveiling was "a great, dear day! Please God, it will lay the basis for another life, other conditions, other beliefs .... How good it would be! How good it would be!"S In his speech, Dostoevsky-who was riding high on the crest of popularity produced by The Brothers Karamazov, which had been coming out serially over the past year and a half in Russkii vestnikheld out the alluring promise of such a "new life" and brought the rising tide of euphoria at the celebration to an intoxicating climax. While Turgenev had been the unchallenged hero at the start of the celebration, it was only after Dostoevsky spoke, wrote his former colleague Nikolai Strakhov, that "it seemed as if, at last, that word which everyone had been waiting for for a full three days had been said, a word worthy of Pushkin's memory and corresponding to the ecstasy with which everyone was filled."6

Dostoevsky's Triumph At the second OLRS morning session on June 8, Dostoevsky became high priest of the intelligentsia's "holy days." Dostoevsky's speech followed the rather colorless and sentimental talk of the society's secretary N. A. Chaev. Mikhnevich described Dostoevsky as "small and sickly looking" as he read his speech. He gave "the impression of some inspired medieval ascetic and preacher, an abso-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DOSTOEVSKY

11

HIJACKS 11 THE CELEBRATION

125

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

lute fanatic of the typical Peter the Hermit type," with his "wholehearted belief in himself, in his mission, and in his truth," who (shades of the Grand Inquisitor!) "was ready to go to the stake for his idea, or, if necessary, to send his opponent to it, even if it be his own brother. "7 By the time Dostoevsky finished speaking, the hall was in a state of pandemonium exceeding anything the writer had ever depicted in his often hysteria-filled novels. This is how Dostoevsky himself described the scene in a letter home to his wife written that evening: The hall was packed. No, Ania, no you cannot imagine the effect it produced! What are my Petersburg successes compared to this-nothing, a zero! When I went to read the hall began to thunder with applause, which kept me from starting for a long time. I took a bow, made motions so that they would let me read-nothing helped: rapture, enthusiasm (all because of Karamazov!) Finally I began to read. They interrupted me on every single page, and sometimes after every phrase there was thunderous clapping. I read loudly, with fire. Everything I wrote about Tat'iana was met with enthusiasm. (This is the great victory of our idea over twenty-five years of delusions!) When I proclaimed about universal unity at the end the hall was in hysterics, and when I finished, I can't tell you the roar, the wail of rapture. People, strangers to each other in the audience, cried, wept, hugged one another, and vowed to each other to be better, not to hate but to love one another from now on. The session's program was upset; everyone rushed up to me on the dais-grand dames, schoolgirls, State Secretaries, students-they all kissed and hugged me. All the members of our society who were on the dais hugged and kissed me, and were literally crying in ecstasy. For a half an hour they called me back, waved handkerchiefs, and two old men I didn't know stopped me and said, "We were enemies for twenty years, didn't speak to each otherand now we have kissed and made up. You made peace between us. You are our saint, you are our prophet!" "Prophet, prophet!" they shouted in the crowd. Turgenev, about whom I put in a good word in my speech, rushed up and hugged me, with tears. Annenkov ran up to press my hand and kiss me on the shoulder. "You are a genius, you are more than a genius!" they both said to me. 8

Dostoevsky's triumph, reported Vasilevsky, exceeded all usual limits. It was a fever, an intoxication, an explosion ... The exalted gathering did not have enough means to express its ecstasy, and people simply flung themselves all over the hall. ... [Dostoevsky's] fanatical, bottomless faith in the truth, beauty, and grandeur of his ideals reigned supreme .... Its gleam and glitter burned and blinded ....

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

!26

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

When Dostoevsky finished, the whole hall was spiritually at his feet. He conquered them, moved them, distracted and reconciled them ... The men had tears in their eyes, the ladies sobbed with emotion, groans and thunder filled the air... One young man from the audience rushed headlong out of the room at Dostoevsky's last words, and ran into a side room where he fell in a faint. Human words cannot aspire to greater effectY .

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Another correspondent reported that "when Dostoevsky finished, there echoed in the hall not merely noise and din but a kind of unreserved wail. I know that everyone jumped up from their seats and threw themselves toward the stage, where the members of the Society were shaking Dostoevsky's hand and vying with one another to kiss him; I know that one lady fainted, and some young man went into hysterics." 10 Dostoevsky was ushered off into a side room to escape the crowds, and more people rushed up to the stage, thinking that he had collapsed in an epileptic fit and was about to die.l 1 When things had calmed down a little, Ivan Aksakov, who was scheduled to speak next, stood up and declared: I cannot speak after the speech of Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky; everything I wrote is merely a weak variation on some of the themes of that speech of genius. I consider Fedor Mikhailovich's speech an event in our literature.... Even yesterday it could have seemed to be a question whether Pushkin is a narodnyi poet or not; even yesterday the doubt was expressed here whether it was possible to give him the name of natsional'nyi poet; now, thank God, that question is irrelevant, finished forever, and everyone gathered here, of whatever way of thinking, of whatever tendency, Slavophile or Westemizer, all must be of one mind in recognizing Pushkin as our national poet. F. M. Dostoevsky's prophetic words, like lightning, have cut through the waves of fog, and ended all wrangling and doubt. There is no more to say about it! 12 Again pandemonium in the hall. lur'ev stood up to declare Dostoevsky unanimously selected a "distinguished member" of the OLRS (as Turgenev had been in r879). The hysteria continued, and the session was suspended for a while; the idea of ending the meeting right then was considered. Finally, Dostoevsky and the others persuaded Aksakov to give his speech. Annenkov, Kalachev, and Bartenev followed, but their speeches were clearly anticlimactic. Then Potekhin moved that a subscription for a monument to Gogol be started, and four thousand rubles were immediately pledged. 13 As

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DOSTOEVSKY

11

HIJACKS 11 THE CELEBRATION

I 2

7

the session ended, a group of young women came up to the dais and crowned Dostoevsky with a tremendous laurel wreath, which bore the inscription "For the Russian woman, about whom you said so much that was good!"l4 One of them reportedly bumped into Turgenev and pushed him out of her way, exclaiming spitefully, "Not for you, not for you!" The excitement carried over into the evening's literary-musical presentation, which brought the celebration to a close. Dostoevsky replaced Turgenev as favorite and was called out for several encores, at which he recited Pushkin's poem "The Prophet" twice by heart. The evening again concluded with an "apotheosis" of Pushkin, only this time Turgenev ceded to Dostoevsky the honor of crowning Pushkin's bust.1s Within a few days of the speech, however, Dostoevsky's critics were trying to account for and explain away his success. Some, like Saltykov, felt that Dostoevsky had "duped" the public and had "hijacked" the Pushkin Celebration. Turgenev, at first pleased at Dostoevsky's words of reconciliation and caught up in the general enthusiasm at the public session, became bitter and embarrassed at newspaper reports that said he had "completely surrendered" to Dostoevsky. He attributed Dostoevsky's success to a dishonest pandering to Russian national pride, and even considered writing a rebuttal. What had driven people into hysterics on June 8, noted one commentator, lost nine-tenths of its attraction when laid out in black and whitei "all that was left is distraction, distraction, distraction! 11

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Dostoevsky's Appeal to the Intelligentsia

"Human words cannot aspire to greater effect. 11 Whatever we make of Dostoevsky's ideas, his Pushkin Speech remains a brilliant piece of rhetoric designed to disarm, defeat, and win over his audience.l6 Dostoevsky began by citing Gogol's well-known statement that "Pushkin is an extraordinary, and perhaps a unique, phenomenon of the Russian spirit," and added that Pushkin was also "a prophetic one": "Yes, in his appearance there was something truly prophetic for all of us Russians, something indisputably prophetic. Pushkin appeared precisely at the very inception of our true selfconsciousness, which was just then coming into being ... and his

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

128

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

appearance greatly helped to illuminate our dark path with a guiding light. In this sense Pushkin is a prophecy and a revelation" (I 3 6-3 7; 967).17 Pushkin is prophetic for all of us Russians. Unlike Turgenev, who had made a formal, public declaration of respect for Pushkin, and a kind of apologia for society's neglect of the poet, Dostoevsky treated Pushkin's works as a revelation of Russian character and destiny, a text whose sacred inner meaning he would unravel for his listeners. Whereas Turgenev planned his speech as "a literary and cultured man for his colleagues," Dostoevsky appealed to the collective moral conscience of his audience like a preacher. He masterfully involved his listeners in his arguments, getting them to identify with his position and participate in his moral fervor. Dostoevsky spoke in a language his audience could appreciate, adopting the accepted categories and terminology of the social critics. Following Ivan Kireevsky and later critics, Dostoevsky divided Pushkin's output into three periods, and set out to prove how through the social "types" in Pushkin's works the poet had "detected and recorded" the "central malady" of the Russian intelligentsia. It was characteristic of Russian literary criticism to interpret literary texts as "answers" to broad cultural and social questions, and Dostoevsky breathtakingly reduces Pushkin's career, and that of his heroes, into an allegory of Russia's struggle against the alien forces of the West, its rejection of Byronic egotism and the assertion of a native "positive hero." Such types as Aleko from Pushkin's first period, he argued, represented the unhappy wanderer [skital'ets] in his native land, that traditional Russian sufferer detached from the people, who appeared in our society as an historical necessity .... These homeless Russian ramblers are wandering still, and it seems it will be a long time until they disappear. If in our day they no longer visit Gypsy camps, with their wild and odd mode of living, in a quest for their universal ideals and in order to seek refuge in the bosom of nature from the confused and incongruous life of Russian educated society-they embrace socialism, which did not exist in Aleko's day, and with their new faith they travel to another field, eager to till it, believing, like Aleko, that through this fantastic labor they will attain their goal and happiness, not only for themselves butforallmen.(I37; g86)

Dostoevsky deftly turns his analysis of Pushkin's Aleko into a diagnosis of the unhappy Russian intellectual and, by extension, of his audience of unhappy Russian intellectuals. But rather than make a

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DOSTOEVSKY

11 HIJACKS 11

THE CELEBRATION

129

frontal assault on them, Dostoevsky, by first enlisting their sympathy, gets his audience to participate in a kind of mass self-analysis. Dostoevsky explains to his audience their own motives and logic, using Pushkin's familiar heroes and heroines allegorically. Once he has established the audience's identification with these literary characters, he can then proceed to demonstrate their moral dilemma and the defect in their logic. Aleko and his descendants search for Truth, but "where that truth lies, what form it takes, where it can appear and when precisely it was lost, of course, he does not know, but his is sincere suffering.... 'Truth,' it is implied, 'is somewhere outside of him, somewhere in other lands-in Europe perhaps, with its solid historical order, with its settled social and civic mode of life.' Nor will he ever comprehend that first of all the truth is within himself" (138; 969). Pushkin had given the answer to the "accursed question" of the Russian intelligentsia: "'Humble thyself, proud man; before all else, overcome thy pride! Humble thyself, idle man, and, first of all, labor on thy native soil!' Such is the truth according to the people's truth and wisdom" (s 14; 970). Dostoevsky turned familiar material on its head, explicitly reversing the interpretations given by Belinsky and the social critics by appealing to his audience's moral sense. Dostoevsky revealed the tragic impotence of Aleko, Onegin, and the romantic rebels against society, and brought his point home sensationally by declaring Tat'iana-whom Belinsky had rejected as a "moral embryo" and slave to social convention-to be the personification of "positive moral beauty" on a cosmic scale and a symbol of hope for Russia's future.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Rhetoric of Paradox Dostoevsky uses a similar technique throughout the speech to disarm those whom he would proselytize and to have them see for themselves his vision of "positive moral beauty." His modus operandi is perhaps most apparent at the very end, when he justifies his hopes in Russia's grand mission: The chief thing is that all this will seem presumptuous. "Is this the destiny for us," they will say, "for our poor, brutal land? Are we predestined among mankind to utter the new word?" Why, am I speaking about economic glory, about glory of the sword or of science? I speak only of the brotherhood of man, I say that of all peoples the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

30

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Russian heart perhaps is most predestined to [bring about] a universal, brotherly union; I see traces of this in our history, our men of genius, in Pushkin's artistic genius. Let our country be poor, but it is this poor country "from which Christ went forth, giving blessing, in the garb of a slave."* Why then do we not contain His final word? Was not He Himself born in a manger? I say again, at least we can already point to Pushkin, to the universality and panhuman nature of his genius. He surely could contain the genius of foreign lands in his soul as his own. In art at least, in artistic creation, he undeniably revealed this universality of the aspiration of the Russian spirit-and in this already is a great indication [for the future]. If our thought is a fantasy, then at least in Pushkin this fantasy has some basis. (148; 98o)

Dostoevsky anticipates the objection his critics will make and even concedes them the arguments (yes, Russia is economically backward). He then, however, turns weakness into strength, undercutting the objection from within by putting it into a new frame of reference (Russia's very backwardness qualifies her as carrier of the universal message). "At least we can already point to Pushkin.... At least in Pushkin this fantasy has some basis." For Dostoevsky, Pushkin represents the only demonstrable proof of his ideas. Where all else may be questioned-including, Dostoevsky seems to imply, perhaps even Christ's mission itself!-Pushkin stands firm. Dostoevsky proclaims Pushkin to be Russian's national poet and, even more than that, the single greatest "universal [vsemirnyi]" or "world [mirovoi]" genius. Whereas Turgenev had hesitated to promote Pushkin into the elite of world-class geniuses, Dostoevsky asserted that Pushkin's "uniquely Russian" faculty of reincarnation [perevoploshchenie]something "never before seen or heard at any time or in any nation"-sets him above Shakespeare, Goethe, Homer, and Schiller. According to Dostoevsky, Pushkin is able to recreate the essence of other nations in his works. He "reincarnates himself" into "alien" spirits and nations: he "becomes" a German in writing his scene from Faust, a Spaniard in his "Don Juan," an Englishman in "Feast during the Plague," a Moslem in his "Imitations of the Koran," a man of the ancient world in "Egyptian Nights," and so on. In this Pushkin reveals Russia's great mission to Europe. This is a miraculous, prophetic faculty, beyond mere "responsiveness [otzyvchivost']," and *The last lines of Tiutchev's well-known lyric "These poor settlements [Eti bednye selen'ia)" (rSss), which Dostoevsky often cited in his other works, as in Ivan Karamazov's story about the Grand Inquisitor (The Brothers Karamazov, bk. 5, pt. s).

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

DOSTOEVSKY "HIJACKS" THE CELEBRATION

I

3I

manifests a "tendency toward universal sympathy and reconciliation" which promises the salvation of a Europe on the brink of catastrophe and the unification of all mankind. It falls to Russia (Dostoevsky concluded) "to pronounce the final Word of the great general harmony, of the final brotherly communion of all nations in accord with the law of the Gospel of Christ!" (I48; 980). Dostoevsky's unique conception of Pushkin represents his boldest, ultimate reversal.I 8 Here Dostoevsky's argumentation comes closest to fulfilling Aristotle's definition of "rhetoric" as the "proving of opposites." Russia's "imitativeness" and lack of identity, which Russians had bemoaned since the start of the century, itself emerges as the essence of her greatness. In his analysis of early nineteenth-century nationalist messianism, Martin Malia has noted the historical conditions that made for such sweeping reversals. Because of the feelings of embarrassed national pride produced in the Napoleonic era, frustrated nationalists compensated for their feelings of inferiority by devising psychologically soothing if utopian theories, in which Malia classes Slavophilism. "Whatever was most cruelly lacking in the national existence was rationalized as unimportant, or even construed as a virtue, while those elements of positive achievement which did exist were exalted to the rank of the first principle of life." 19 While Russian pride may certainly have made significant gains by I88o, a similar impulse may be seen to have motivated Dostoevsky, and his apotheosis of Pushkin may appear as a desperate attempt to salvage Russian self-image. 2 0 What might seem to be merely a psychological mechanism to political scientists and historians, however, has a venerable theological tradition behind it in the Orthodox ideal of "kenosis," which calls for faith, humility, and self-effacement in the face of adversity and degradation, and turns suffering into a vehicle for spiritual grace. For Dostoevsky (as well as for other contemporary apologists of Orthodoxy such as the novelist Nikolai Leskov), Russia's squalor and backwardness were the very things that kept pure the ideal of Christ, spoiled elsewhere, and indicated God's special plans for that nation.2 1

Dostoevsky's Fusion of Messianism and Aesthetics The substance of Dostoevsky's messianism has disturbed and disconcerted his readers and commentators. Many would still agree

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I

32

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

with the judgment of one impatient critic writing in the radical journal Delo in 188o that "in this impenetrable, half-mystical, halfprophetical, ventriloqual fog there is nothing you can make out; no kind of logic or common sense are applicable to this literary cabalism. " 22 Yet at the same time, even the most hostile of commentators have recognized that Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech was (in the words of Zamotin) "an open proclamation of his most cherished ideals," given "in full" "for the first time, in a concise and simple general formula. "23 The key to Dostoevsky's messianism should be sought in his special understanding of Pushkin, who, as we have seen, stood as its firm "proof." Dostoevsky's view of Pushkin's special nature derives in part-most obviously-from earlier Russian criticism of the poet. The notion of Pushkin as a Prometheus or a Proteus, which probably entered Russian criticism via romantic poetry, was current during his lifetime and may have contributed to the idea of Pushkin's special and "miraculous sympathy" (as Stepan Shevyrev put it in r84r) "for all geniuses of universal Poetry."24 A few years later Belinsky referred to the Slavophiles' complaint that Russians who go abroad lose their character. He agreed that it was a peculiarly Russian trait to assume alien identities easily, and one that Pushkin shared, but argued that it was a remarkable facility rather than a fault.2s And in his Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends, Gogol expressed the same idea. Gogol's faith in the messianic, transforming power of art was strikingly similar to Dostoevsky's.26 While Gogol argued for a "Christian" art and insisted that Pushkin was a Christian poet, the argumentation and language he used to describe Pushkin was strongly romantic. Dostoevsky infused the romantic cliches of the critical tradition with his own conception of Orthodoxy.27 The main thing Dostoevsky shared with these critics, from Gogol to the early Belinsky to Apollon Grigor'ev, was the belief that art, rather than reason alone; held the key to truth: aesthetics elevated to the central field of philosophical and moral inquiry. Following in the tradition of German "organic" aesthetics which culminated with Schelling, they emphasized the artist's aesthetic intuition-rather than the philosopher's fully conscious logic-as the primary, and only integral, way to truth. Only in the works of an inspired poetartist, who combines an intuitive vision of the world with his conscious reason, can one fully penetrate the essence of reality. The philosopher's role becomes that of the literary critic who can only

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

DOSTOEVSKY "HIJACKS" THE CELEBRATION

I

33

plumb the meaning of a work of art-and of reality-by trying to replicate within himself the intuitive logic of the artist. 28 Dostoevsky adapted the "organic" view of aesthetic cognition into a specifically "Orthodox" frame of reference, a frame that drew largely upon the theological and polemical tradition of the early slavophile thinkers Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomiakov. 29 In fact, the last surviving original Slavophile, A. I. Koshelev, argued in r88o (seriously, if fatuously) that Dostoevsky should have chosen Khomiakov-an important religious poet in his own right-as the focus for his messianic theories rather than Pushkin.3o The slavophile underpinnings to Dostoevsky's speech were clear to contemporaries. The radical critic Alexander Gorshkov, for example, contemptuously noted that Dostoevsky had merely "rehashed" the old slavophile "the West is rotting" theory, and added that Dostoevsky's arguments lacked the theoretical and logical underpinning Khomiakov had tried to give them thirty years earlier. Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech represents a dynamic synthesis of romantic "organic" aesthetics, on the one hand, and of slavophile notions of Orthodoxy on the other. Although organicists such as Grigor'ev had acknowledged the primacy of religion in shaping a national literature, aesthetic concerns clearly took precedence over theological ones (something even more true for Westernizers such as Turgenev). Conversely, the Slavophiles had doubted and at times even denied the value of Russian literature, which seemed to them too secular and European.3 1 Grigor'ev had made a "cult" of Pushkin; the Slavophiles hardly recognized him. Dostoevsky brought the two traditions together by approaching the central issues of Russian Orthodoxy precisely from an "aesthetic" perspective; the philosophical and religious viewpoints converge specifically in his view of Pushkin.

Pushkin and the Miracle of Pentecost In the Pushkin Speech, Dostoevsky hails Pushkin as a phenomenon unique in all of world history-as he expressed it in his markedly Gogolian style, something "almost even miraculous [pochti dazhe chudesnoe]." There is every reason to believe that Dostoevsky considered Pushkin's ability to "reincarnate" himself into the spirit of other nations literally miraculous. References to the divine nature

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I

34

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

of art in Dostoevsky's writings provide strong circumstantial evidence that Dostoevsky understood artistic creation as a descent of the Holy Spirit onto the artist-apostle, and if we allow that the nature of Pushkin's genius was Pentecostal, Dostoevsky's understanding of his role and of the messianic potential of Russian literature falls into clear and compelling focus. In the Russian Orthodox tradition, the miracle of Pentecost represents a pivotal moment in sacred history and a key to the divine nature of the universe. 32 According to Acts 2, at Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles in tongues of fire and conferred upon them the miraculous ability to speak and understand foreign tongues, known as "glossolalia." The miracle, according to Peter, represents God's "promise" of mankind's eventual salvation and resurrection. Scattered remarks about the nature of artistic creation in Dostoevsky's notebooks-especially in his notebooks for The Possessed of r869-r872-suggest that Dostoevsky interpreted all of reality in terms of this miracle. In Dostoevsky's view, since the miracle of Pentecost the whole world has been infused with the Holy Spirit and thus contains the possibility of divine transfiguration within itself. The key to the divine nature of things is beauty. At one point in his notebooks Dostoevsky defines the Holy Ghost as "an immediate comprehension of beauty, a prophetic awareness of harmony, and so a steadfast striving for it."33 The Holy Spirit both allows beauty to be seen (as what might be called "inspiration") and is itself the source or cause of beauty (that which inspires you, something latent in the physical world). The artist-apostle possesses a superior ability to comprehend the beautiful, the miraculous nature of existence, and incorporate it into his art. Dostoevsky noted to himself that with Shakespeare "this is not a simple reproduction of everyday life, which, as many scholars assert, exhausts the whole of reality. The whole of reality is not exhausted by everyday life, for a huge part of it is present in the form of a still latent, unexpressed, future Word. From time to time there appear prophets who divine and express this integral word. Shakespeare is a prophet, sent by God, so as to reveal to us secrets about man, about the human soul."3 4 Artist-prophets such as Shakespeare and Pushkin are God's select vessels for the revelation of beauty to man. The Holy Spirit enables them to understand and reveal the "secrets of existence"; they look beyond everyday life and see the "higher reality." By means of the Holy Spirit, the artist-prophet is able to "see" true reality (the Holy

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DOSTOEVSKY "HIJACKS" THE CELEBRATION

I

35

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Spirit is both what inspires the artist and his inspiration itself). Such artist-prophets are able to understand and express the "future Word" latent in the beauty of the world-to envisage, in other words, the Second Coming. Because for Dostoevsky beauty and our perception of it represent a constant reminder of the Pentecostal promise that reality will someday be completely transfigured in total beauty. Man must have faith, wrote Dostoevsky, that "the world will become the beauty of Christ." 35 The pentecostal miracle is what makes salvation-the fulfillment of God in man, the infusion of the divine spirit into material flesh-what Russians call Bogochelovechestvo, or Godmanhood-possible.3 6 Hence Beauty-as Dostoevsky promises enigmatically in The Idiot-"will save the world."37 That Dostoevsky considered Pushkin such a prophet is clear not only from the Pushkin Speech, but from his obsession with Pushkin's poem "The Prophet," which Dostoevsky recited publicly dozens of times to adoring audiences during the last years of his life. 38 (To a certain extent Dostoevsky himself had become associated with the poem, and the Pushkin Speech helped confirm him in the role of prophet for many Russians of his own and later generations.) In Dostoevsky's view Pushkin's greatness as a prophet exceeded even that of Shakespeare. The pentecostal theory of artistic creation suggests that the more powerful the genius, the more he partakes of the Holy Spirit, the more "secrets of existence" he comprehends and can reveal in his art. And Pushkin comes closest to fulfilling the role of an apostle at Pentecost-he is able to "speak in tongues"; whereas in Shakespeare's works foreigners all speak in the same recognizable Shakespearian English, asserted Dostoevsky in his speech, Pushkin's Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, and so on are truly themselves.

Pushkin, the Orthodox Church, and Divine History According to Orthodox theology, the miracle of Pentecost was a specific historical revelation of God to man, a pivotal moment in the history of mankind's path to redemption. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit revealed itself in human history fully for the first time, a counterpart and fulfillment to the miracle of Bogochelovechestvo, of Christ's sojourn on earth: first God was revealed in flesh, and then in spirit. And as Khomiakov argued in his famous theological treatise

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

136

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

on Russian Orthodoxy, "The Church is One," the church does not represent a human institution but rather "the revelation of the Holy Spirit," the creation and vessel of the divine on earth.39 The Orthodox Church is not one of many Christian churches, but the "Single, Holy, Conciliar, Apostolic Church" established on earth at Pentecost to exist until the end of time. The history of the holy ChurchGod's instrument for mankind's salvation-began at Pentecost.40 Dostoevsky's appraisal of Russia's mission to Europe followed directly from his understanding of the messianic, "Pentecostal" destiny of Russian Orthodoxy. In the mid-nineteenth century the conflict between the Eastern patriarchs and Pope Pius IX over papal authority dramatically revived the doctrinal disputes about the Holy Ghost, to which the schism between the churches itself was traced. 41 According to Khomiakov-and Dostoevsky-the West had gone into decline because it rejected the special, holy, and conciliar Church. The Catholic West had fallen from the unity of the Church when it added the "filioque" to the holy creed, thereby violating the conciliar principle on two counts: both by perverting the notion of the Trinity on which the Apostolic Church is based, and by its despotic and unconciliar attempt to impose its will on all believers. 42 (Dostoevsky held that the Protestant West had gone even further down the road to worldliness and atheism, and that socialism and anarchy were also but an extension of Catholicism's cardinal confusion of temporal and spiritual power.) The recurring image Dostoevsky employs in his writings to describe the coming fate of the West is the Tower of Babel, which for him, and in the Orthodox tradition in general, carried specific political meaning.43 Significantly, in the Russian church, mankind's fall at Babel was commonly taken as the Old Testament antitype for the miracle of Pentecost; Pentecost restored mankind's potential for universal understanding and salvation which had been forfeited when God punished politically rebellious mankind with the differentiation of tongues. For Dostoevsky, the Europeans had already begun to build their tower-a socialistic, secularized, atheistic universal state that they thought they could erect by themselves, without God-a state based on reason alone and hence doomed, like Babel, to an apocalyptic end. For Dostoevsky, Russia, as carrier of the Pentecostal message, symbolized the messianic promise of Christian world unity which Russia could offer to an ailing Europe, a promise he held to be manifested in the kind of perfect linguistic understand-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DOSTOEVSKY

11

HIJACKS 11 THE CELEBRATION

37

ing that Pushkin possessed. Russia's mission, then, was to preserve and transmit the true Word to the rest of mankind, specifically to the errant Christians of Europe. Dostoevsky's message was no less oriented toward the West than Turgenev's. But while for Turgenev the "West" signified a concrete cultural and political reality to be emulated, for Dostoevsky, as for the Slavophiles, it represented more the inversion of an idealized "Russian" self than a real historical entity; their "Russianness" was dependent on its antithesis, "Westernism," like two sides of the same coin. Ill-disposed contemporaries noted with some disgust the writer's references in his speech to the "Aryan race," and Mikhailovsky sarcastically queried why Dostoevsky did not take his message of salvation to the heathen Hottentots rather than to civilized Europeans. The much more sympathetic Nikolai Berdiaev has also pointed out the anomaly of a messianic creed addressed by Christians to other Christians rather than to nonbelievers, a messianism in the name of universal, rather than national, truth. 44 Be that as it may, Dostoevsky's views deeply accorded with ancient Russian doctrines about the nation's destiny, which also drew sustenance from Orthodoxy's special understanding of Pentecost and promoted Russia's self-image as the antithesis of things Western. According to the well-known formula of the early sixteenth-century monk Filofei, "two Romes have fallen, the third stands, and a fourth there shall not be." The first two, fallen, Romes were Rome itself-which (according to Nicholas Zernov) "represented the paternal authority of the Father"-and Constantinople-the intellectual head of Christendom, the Son. Moscow was the third and final Rome," the fulfillment of the Trinity, an idea that embodied "the conviction that the entire corporate life of a nation should be inspired by the Holy Spirit," and the belief that Russia's political destiny was to achieve the transfiguration of the entire world. 45 Dostoevsky maintained that after the apostasy of the Catholic West and the fall of Constantinople, Russia had preserved the truth of the One Church in isolation. Then the time came when the tsars-starting with Peter the Great-had realized their duty to bring the true Word to the West. But Peter's reforms had been too violent, too intolerant of native ways, and had resulted in the creation of an intelligentsia cut off from the people and their Church. Paradoxically, it was Pushkin-ostensibly the most European and secular, the least moralistic and straitlaced of all great Russian writers-whom Dostoevsky pro11

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

38

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

claimed their savior, the one to summon the intelligentsia back into the bosom of Church and people. The Pushkin Celebration heralded such an ingathering and marked what Dostoevsky seemed to believe literally was the start of the coming age of apocalypse.46

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Critics' Second Thoughts For six months after the Pushkin Celebration, Dostoevsky's speech was the focus of continuing controversy, and was reprinted over a dozen times and reviewed in at least sixty-five articles in over forty newspapers and journals. The majority of commentators took issue with Dostoevsky and spilled much ink trying to account for his extraordinary success at the celebration. Uspensky tried to explain the initial appeal of Dostoevsky's speech to the intelligentsia: "How would it have been possible not to salute Mr. Dostoevsky, who for the first time in almost three decades took it upon himself to tell all those who had become worn out with suffering during those years: 'Your inability to be satisfied with personal happiness, your grief and your concern for the happiness of others, and your labors for the cause of universal well-being-however imperfect they may have beenwere a mission predetermined by your whole nature, a mission that expressed the innermost qualities of your nationality.'" 47 Sympathy for Dostoevsky's call to humility-which at least one Soviet critic has taken as a direct appeal to the Populist terrorists 4B-wore off quite quickly, as his contemporaries tried to fathom the political message or "program" Dostoevsky was advocating. Uspensky, under pressure from Saltykov, followed up his not entirely unsympathetic report on the speech with a withering satire on the novelist's view of Tat'iana, in which he tried to demonstrate that the specific political message of the Pushkin speech had been nebulous enough to appeal to terrorist, bureaucrat, liberal, and reactionary alike. Mikhailovsky, summing up Uspensky's critique, wrote that the speech boiled down to "an empty and not altogether clever trick," empty because Dostoevsky had not offered "even one firm conclusion, or one unwavering idea." Reacting to the August Diary of a Writer, however, he objected that "it is not for Mr. Dostoevsky to teach us," especially if he was taking the Populists' "very own idea" and trying to "drench it with icon lamp oil, into which flies and other kinds of scum have fallen."49 Critics such as Mikhailovsky began to see through what

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

DOSTOEVSKY "HIJACKS" THE CELEBRATION

139

they thought was (as Alan Pollard describes it) the "thinly veiled flattery" of the Pushkin speech which had helped make "palpable to an intelligentsia audience a message that was inherently distasteful tO it."SO Mikhailovsky and many others had never forgiven Dostoevsky's devastating portrait of the revolutionary movement in The Possessed (1873), although the success of The Brothers Karamazov and the Diary of a Writer, his one-man literary journal that had been published irregularly since r873, had done much to bolster his reputation among the general reading public. Many of Dostoevsky's opponents, who also recalled Dostoevsky's more recent summons that Russia conquer Constantinople during the Russo-Turkish War and his notorious dislike for Jews, tried to dismiss his ideas with a series of uncomplimentary "isms": mysticism, infantilism, obscurantism, anti-Semitism, racism, jingoism, warmed-over German romanticism, and so on. Most such critics considered his arguments beneath debate and reacted with bemused sarcasm, anger, or outright abuse. The radical critic Alexander Gorshkov concluded that simply "his logic-is not ours; ours-is not his .... One does not argue with Pythians; one must either obey unquestioningly when listening to their cryptic prophesies, or laugh in the way of the augurs." 51 A few critics allowed that it was a healthy and normal thing to give in to patriotic exaltation at such moments as the Pushkin Celebration. For most commentators, however, the major stumbling block to accepting Dostoevsky's ideas proved to be his insistent disregard for the realities of Russian life. Molva encapsulated such criticism in a widely quoted editorial: "No! We think that this truly national Pushkin Celebration should not make us think about Europe and about universal missions [but rather about] love for Russia and about her vital needs ... We aver that it is not yet our place to save or to instruct others. We do cherish a warm faith that the Russian people will someday do service to universal development, but for this to happen it must first grow intellectually and materially, to reach that level on which more cultured and progressive peoples stand.... We must follow that path on which all cultured humanity travels. "52 Dostoevsky ignored the country's economic and political miseries, argued such critics. At the same time, his "slavophile" argumentsthat Russia would not follow the Western model of development and that the Russian people had a lesson to teach Europe-seemed to have little or no practical application.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

140

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

The problem of interpreting the politics of Dostoevsky's speech may be traced back to the fundamental paradoxicalness of the novelist's utopian position, so clearly evident in his interpretation of Pushkin's divine mission. Dostoevsky offered his impossible, apocalyptic "dream" as a practical, concrete "program/' at one and the same time setting up expectations that he would offer solutions to Russia's problems and frustrating them, alternating between carefully worded arguments about the need for faith and vehement assertions of exclusive truth. If Dostoevsky and Aksakov strengthened the forces of reaction, it was primarily because, as Edward Thaden has put it, they were "too naive and uncritical to grasp the possible implications and results of a given idea or press campaign within the frame of reference of the realities and intrigues of Russian political life."53 And this applies even more strongly to Dostoevsky's belief in the coming apocalypse, the reality of which he had long been struggling to convince himself of.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Dostoevsky's Reply to His Critics The paradoxes of Dostoevsky's position are even more sharply evident in his August I88o edition of Diary of a Writer, which included the speech, an introduction, and an answer to his critics, in the form of four "lectures" addressed to the well-known "liberal professor" A. D. Gradovsky, who had criticized the speech in Golos. Dostoevsky wrote that this "was not [merely] an answer to my critics, but my profession de foi for the entire future. Here I have my final and unadorned say, calling things by their own names."54 Dostoevsky noted in his reply to Gradovsky that (perhaps unlike in the Pushkin Speech) he now wrote not to convince but to attest to his beliefs, and frankly stated that "personally I have nothing in common with you, and nothing to discuss with you. It is impossible for us to come to an agreement; hence I have no intention of trying to convince or dissuade you" (149; 981). On the one hand, Dostoevsky reiterated his utopian faith. On the other, he released all of his bitterness and anger against his ideological foes, and largely dispensed with the tone of reconciliation and restraint that characterized the Pushkin Speech, from which, as we can see from the drafts, he had purposefully deleted some of his explicit derrogatory references to the liberals. He raged at the critics who (as he put it in a letter) had taken "a significant and wonderful, completely new mo-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DOSTOEVSKY "HIJACKS 11 THE CELEBRATION

I

4I

ment in the life of our society" and tried to spit on it, "to dirty it, destroy it, ridicule it, distort it, and to undermine everyone's faith in it: [to convince them that] nothing of the kind happened." 55 In the speech Dostoevsky had included some complimentary words for Turgenev (which had drawn a warm response); 56 now Dostoevsky made a thinly veiled personal attack on his long-time ideological foe:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I hear, I have a premonition, I even see that new elements are rising and going forth, elements that thirst for a new word, elements that have grown sick and tired of the old liberal sniggering at any word of hope for Russia, sick and tired of the old toothless liberal skepticism, sick and tired of the old corpses that they forgot to bury and which still take themselves for the young generation, sick and tired of the old liberal guide and savior of Russia who for the whole length of the twenty-five years he stayed with us was ultimately defined-as the popular saying goes-as "a man shouting aimlessly in the marketplace." (149; 981)

Dostoevsky's disturbingly petulant rhetoric and his overt attacks on the intelligentsia led many critics to make a simple equation of his views with Katkov's (a perspective seemingly supported by the fact that the speech first appeared in Moskovskie vedomosti).57 Most recently, Pollard has argued that "Dostoevsky became associated with Katkov's efforts to make the intelligentsia the scapegoat for the political crisis of I88o," and concluded that "thanks to Dostoevsky, the new Russian right succeded in using the Pushkin festival to propagate its ideas." 58 At the same time as he attacked the liberals, however, Dostoevsky repeated the main points of his defense of Pushkin, and elaborated on Aksakov's characterization of his speech as a vital "event" that "irrefutably" testified to a new unification (edinenie) of Slavophile and Westernizer. While, as many of Dostoevsky's critics charged, he often seemed all too ready to cut the intelligentsia out of Russian nationhood, his explicit formulation of the epochal, messianic significance of the Pushkin Celebration clearly includes the liberal intelligentsia within the equation (albeit on his own terms, as united with the narod).

The Politics of Utopia and Spiritual Perestroika While it may be true, as Gorshkov and Thaden have argued, that in terms of the political situation in Russia in I88o Dostoevsky played into the hands of Katkov and the reactionaries, whatever his intentions may have been, such a view hardly does justice to the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

142

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

complexity of Dostoevsky's position. It ignores the utopian context of Dostoevsky's thinking and overlooks the fact that Dostoevsky consistently dissociated himself from Katkov, both ideologically and in terms of the specific political measures Katkov advocated. At one point in his reply to Gradovsky, Dostoevsky responded to the charge that his summons to the intelligentsia to humble itself may have been valuable in personal, moral terms but was not viable as the basis for a social program. "How do you know to what benefit this will ultimately lead? Up to now, apparently, all that was necessary was that the great idea [of Christian brotherhood] did not die out. It's another matter now when something new is arising everywhere in the world, and one must be prepared ... And indeed it has nothing to do with benefit, but with the truth. For if I believe that the truth is here, precisely in that which I believe, what do I care if even the whole world should refuse to believe in my truth, should ridicule me and choose a different path?" (r64; rooo). In order to understand fully Dostoevsky's position, one must take into consideration that he believed an apocalyptic resolution to Russia's problems to be at hand, and that he had seen an indication of this belief coming true in the reactions to his speech. The "flaw" in Dostoevsky's political thinking, then, lies in his failure to be believed, or, from another perspective, in the invitation to misinterpretation and misuse that inevitably results from a quixotic utopian stance that looks to immediate and total solutions. Acording to Dostoevsky, the Pushkin Celebration heralded the rise of "new forces" that indicated the advent of "true Christianity." Rejecting Granovsky's separation of personal (moral) and civic (social) ideals, Dostoevsky argued for a new kind of political organization of society based on truly Christian principles, "a political economy of its own, of an altogether different kind, still unknown" (r 64; 999), civic ideals "more liberal" than those of Russia's liberals, "because they come directly out of our people, not as a slavishly impersonal transplant from the West" (r69; roo4). The precise form of this new Christian political organization is unclear; while in the West the state subdued the church, in Russia the state has not risen to its historical mission-"no real social formula in the spirit of love and self-improvement has yet been elaborated in it" (I?O; 1005). In his reply to Gradovsky, Dostoevsky held up Iurii Samarin as a model for political action, and a brief juxtaposition of Samarin's and Katkov's positions will help emphasize what Dostoevsky called the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

DOSTOEVSKY

11

HIJACKS 11 THE CELEBRATION

143

"truly liberal"-rather than the reactionary-implications of Dostoevsky's utopian views as he understood them. Even before Khomiakov's death in r86o, Slavophilism as a movement had begun to branch out in many disparate directions (for which reason we must speak of Dostoevsky as a "Slavophile" only with substantial qualifications). Indeed Nikolai Danilevsky, Ivan Aksakov, Konstantin Leont'ev, Vladimir Solov'ev, Samarin, and even Katkov, for all their differing and often mutually exclusive political and philosophical positions, have frequently been considered "Slavophiles." 5 9 Dostoevsky defended not Katkov's apotheosis of the Russian state as carrier of the national ideal, but Samarin's progressive reformist activity in the name of the Orthodox ideals of the people. Berdiaev noted that "the liberal Slavophiles" (Samarin, K. Aksakov, and Koshelev) "liberated the serfs with land, fought for freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, denounced the malignancies of the church structure and its incorrect relation to the state, fought for the interests of the oppressed Slavs and proclaimed the ideals of panslavism. Together with this they led the fight against the surging wave of nihilism, materialism, and unbelief." 60 Unlike Katkov, and like these so-called liberal Slavophiles, Dostoevsky eschewed the use of violence (at least in Russian internal politics) and consistently advocated a free press. Like them, Dostoevsky considered free speech a necessary condition for true faith-as opposed to the Westernizing liberals, for example, who defended it as a basic political right. As an example of politics "on a new basis" of Christian love, Dostoevsky pointed to the Pushkin Celebration and its promise of true reconciliation. Dostoevsky rejected the idea of Russian "public opinion" as an autonomous political force and in his novels ridiculed the liberals' insistence on political "rights" (see, for example, the merciless caricature of the "Young Nihilists" in The Idiot). He defended the kind of "public opinion" advocated by Konstantin Aksakov, which he believed he had witnessed at the reading of his speech-a community united in love. As he wrote in the letter to his wife quoted above, after the speech, "people, strangers to one another in the audience, cried, wept, hugged each other, and vowed to each other to be better, not to hate but to love one another from now on [Dostoevsky's italics]." Dostoevsky's vision recalls the words the "mysterious visitor" addresses to Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov: "'Believe me, this dream as you call it will without doubt come to pass; it will come, but not now .... It's a spiritual, psychological

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

144

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

process. To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, people must turn onto a new road psychologically. Before you really become brother to everyone, brotherhood won't arrive. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest will ever teach people to share property and rights with equal consideration for all. Everyone will think he hasn't enough, and everyone will grumble, envy, and exterminate each other.' " 61 The final assessment of the political significance of Dostoevsky's position must take into account the insurmountable difficulty of reconciling his voluntarist, mystical Christian creed into a practical social program. Similar to the Marxist notion of the "withering away of the state," the moral and psychological revolution that Zosima comes to embrace will spontaneously give birth to a political entity founded on fundamentally other principles.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Reconciliation or

Coercion~

What Zosima, and Dostoevsky, envision on an individual level as the free acceptance of divine truth appears to many nonbelievers to imply absolutism and coercion in the practical political arena. Dostoevsky's references to "the great Aryan race," which recalled his notorious anti-Semitism, and the menacing tone of his attacks on the liberal intelligentsia seemed to confirm for many (such as Mikhailovsky) Dostoevsky's reactionary politics, if only on a gut level. But it would be wrong to assume that Dostoevsky's morally hegemonic discourse necessarily demanded or justified politically imperialistic behavior. At the same time, however we interpret the practical implications of Dostoevsky's position, in the purely ideological realm his "more liberal liberalism" left no room for intelligentsia autonomy or for pluralism as anything but a way station to a higher unity. The terms of such "unity" essentially voided (or, in apocalyptic terms, fulfilled) the intelligentsia's function as Russia's intellectual leaders. Dostoevsky's use of the word "liberal" to describe his program calls to mind once again the ambiguities the word accrued in the Russian context, and also suggests the common problem linking Dostoevsky and Turgenev's positions. Both Dostoevsky and Turgenev asserted their right to speak for the people, relying on their faith in eventual class reconciliation, whether a unity achieved from above, on the basis of European enlightenment, or below, on the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

DOSTOEVSKY "HIJACKS" THE CELEBRATION

145

basis of the narod as carrier of the true church. Where Dostoevsky would substitute the ideals of the narod for those of the intelligentsia, Turgenev presumes that the educated elite can and should speak in the name of the narod. In both cases, questions may legitimately be raised about whether or not the "liberalism" they advocated indicated a genuine tolerance. Like most Russian intellectuals at the time, Turgenev and Dostoevsky believed that Russia could still avoid the class struggles of the West and that a unified Russia was possible and desirable. The desire for "unity" and "reconciliation" animated the entire Pushkin Celebration as a kind of golden dream and may be said to be the Holy Grail of Russian political life in general. The reconciliation of r88o was to be a reconciliation not only within the fragmented intelligentsia, between Slavophile and Westernizer, but between intelligentsia and narod, tsar and people: that final reconciliation of state and nation which, it was hoped, would proceed under the banner of Pushkin. The celebration firmly established Pushkin in this mythic role as redeemer of Russian civilization, as mediator between Russia and the West, and as an enduring emblem of national and cultural unity which succeeding generations would continue to define and struggle for. With the assassination of Alexander 11 less than nine months after the Pushkin Celebration, the brief "reconciliation" many thought the celebration had achieved seemed all the more distant and unrealizable. The centripedal forces of retaliation and reaction, polarization and isolation, inter- and intraclass antagonism within Russian society which the tsar's death unleashed were not only not curbed but encouraged. Even before r88o the new scientific study of economics and class struggle inspired by Marx had already begun seriously to engage Russia's radical thinkers, such as N. S. Rusanov, N. F. Danielson, and Lenin's future mentor, G. V. Plekhanov.62 Subsequent events were to provide fertile ground for their acceptance and the desuetude of the notion of class conciliation. After Dostoevsky's "speech of genius," Aksakov had declared the Slavophile-Westemizer schism to be healed. However, the deep enmities between the two positions-as we have seen-resurfaced almost immediately. As Kavelin, Mikhailovsky, and others charged at the time, Dostoevsky and Turgenev and all their followers and critics were merely repeating old arguments, and had ignored all the great changes that had taken place in Russian life since the sixties.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

146

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Pollard notes that "both sides displayed a disheartening tendency to deal with the issues in terms that were either personal or abstract, instead of coming to grips with the structural and institutional problems of the country."63 There is obvious truth to these charges, and yet in some sense, the political situation in Russia had not moved far beyond where it had been twenty years before. Just as today in Gorbachev's Russia, the ability to analyze the country's problems and offer solutions is inseparable from the issue of enfranchising Russian society. It might even be suggested that the question of establishing free and open discourse must necessarily precede all other questions, and that the failure to resolve it renders all other decision-making dubious. The current political and intellectual ferment in Russia is again confronting this perennially unresolved dilemma. Glasnost' reiterates the hope for reconciliation so dramatically symbolized by the Pushkin Celebration, and for many embodies the dream of creating an arena, intellectual and institutional"space," for open discourse-a vision of Russian political life as "a complete and permanent Pushkin Celebration."

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Conclusion: Aftermath and Legacy:Pushkin, I88o-I987

Failed Expectations

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Even though the immediate enthusiasm of the Pushkin Celebration seemed to have been spent in a vacuum, and its impact nullified by subsequent events, the hopes it raised were a long time in dying. For at least the next six months the celebration continued to stir up debate in the Russian press. But as expected reforms failed to materialize, impatience with the government grew, and the optimism voiced during the Pushkin Celebration began to seem premature. "All we hear are echoes of the celebration's exultation, the blather of newspaper verbiage," wrote an anonymous commentator in the Voronezh paper Don in July. "A distressing feeling" is produced, he said, when you juxtapose the "assurances" made by the papers during the celebration with the current "facts of reality": If you lay bare the fact of what occurred in Moscow on June 6 apart from all the added blather and noisemaking, if you hold your rapture over Russia's "progress" in check, leave the muzhik in peace and throw out all talk of "merging" ["of all Russian hearts and minds," i.e., of the interests of all classes and political tendencies)-then what you have left is the following: several intelligent people did well by taking upon themselves the initiative for putting up a monument to a great poet, and in bringing the matter to a successful conclusion. The fact of the opening of the monument acted as a stimulant on people closely connected to scholarship and Russian literature, and forced them to study Pushkin's life and work more fully and attentively-or at least to have their say about him openly for all to hear .... [But) one cannot

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

148

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

say that the monument to Pushkin came into being because Russia attained a higher degree of maturity, or that the narod, having entered a new phase of self-consciousness, appraised the poet according to his merits. One should say that the monument to Pushkin, which appeared almost by chance, acted indirectly on Russian society and will assist in its development, and, to some degree, the development of the narod. 1

Loris-Melikov's "dictatorship," created as an interim solution to the political crisis of early r88o, ended in August as the dictator became minister of internal affairs; at the same time the infamous Third Section was disbanded, to be reorganized within that ministry. In the fall, discussions concerning press reform were resumed, although Loris-Melikov forbade all talk of a constitution in the press, which seemed to confirm Saltykov's fears. At the same time, the People's Will was regrouping to make good its ultimatum "death to absolutism-or a quick death to the tsar." 2 Katkov and the conservative press remained quiet and on the defensive; Bereg folded before the end of the year for want of subscribers. But general impatience increased the discontent and bickering. In December, Orest Miller complained in an article on Dostoevsky's speech that "the reconciliation [promised at the celebration] only showed itself fleetingly and then vanished. Pushkin's monument brought us together for but a moment, and the Russian Mephistopheles can only shake his hands gleefully and proclaim: divide et impera."3 The long months of waiting ended suddenly on March r, r88r, when Rysakov and Grinevitsky killed Alexander II. On the same day the tsar was to have approved a tentative constitutional project by Loris-Melikov, although to what extent it could be considered a true "constitution" remains a question. 4 A year after the Pushkin Celebration, the liberals not only saw all their hopes dashed but watched as even those small gains they had achieved were stripped away one by one. Immediately following the assassination, many contemporaries (Mikhailovsky, for example) expected an imminent revolution. The new tsar Alexander Ill, unsure of the strength of the terrorists and still establishing his position, hesitated over several constitutional projects, and during March and April the ongoing debate over Russia's future continued, both in the press and behind the scenes. Golos, Strana, and other proreform papers urged the new tsar to confirm his father's constitutional plans. 5 They blamed the assassination and the revolutionary movement as a whole on the lack of free

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

149

speech in Russia and on autocracy itself, which they said had made the tsar personally accountable for all of the country's ills. Katkov's Moskovskie vedomosti replied with an outspoken campaign to defend the principle of autocracy and discredit the intelligentsia. Katkov took up precisely where he had left off in early rSSo, with no thought for the "reconciliation" he had urged at the dinner on June 6. He even quoted from those very same editorials denouncing LorisMelikov and the intelligentsia which had created such a furor before the Pushkin Celebration. In his new paper Rus', begun in late rSSo, Ivan Aksakov also campaigned against the idea of a constitution. A consistent defender of a free press but never a proponent of liberalism, Aksakov directed his fire both at the liberal bureaucracy and the "so-called intelligentsia" that supported "Western" constitutional reform for Russia. Aksakov's answer to the crisis was for the tsar to convene a zemskii sobor, an assembly of representatives from the people. Such an assembly, he thought, would be true to the spirit of Russian history and would pose no challenge to autocratic power. It would provide the regime with the popular support any healthy political organism requires and undercut "the pseudoliberal supporters of a Western political order."6 Since the sixties Aksakov had maintained that Russia had to choose between autocratic government with popular support through a zemskii sobor-or an eventual revolution. Now, however, Aksakov saw the main threat to Russia not so much in unlimited autocracy (which he opposed) but in the proposed introduction of Western parliamentarianism. In this he played right into the hands of Katkov and Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who were struggling to win Alexander Ill over to their uncompromising proautocracy position. The Katkovite line soon won out. Alexander Ill, urged on by Katkov and Pobedonostsev, laid the entire blame for the tragedy of March 1 on the press and the disloyal intelligentsia. He wrote to Pobedonostsev on April 21, rSSo, that "it is strange to listen to intelligent people [probably a reference to Loris-Melikov] who can seriously speak about a parliamentary principle in Russia, precisely those phrases taken and memorized from our lousy journalism and bureaucratic liberalism." Pobedonostsev agreed that the country's principal malaise stemmed from "our newspapers and journals" and expressed his surprise "at the blindness and indifference of those government officials who do not want to admit this and resolve to take measures restricting the press. I was always of the opinion that it is precisely here that we should start."7 Katkov and Pobedonostsev

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

50

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

jockeyed to defeat the "liberal" coalition of ministers Loris-Melikov,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

A. A. Abaza, and D. A. Miliutin. The tsar's publication on April29 of

a manifesto reaffirming the inviolable principle of Russian autocracy forced their resignation and signaled the start of another prolonged era of reaction. Count N. P. Ignat'ev replaced Loris-Melikov as minister of internal affairs; Loris-Melikov, bitter over his failure, spent the rest of his life abroad. 8 During his year in office, lgnat'ev sponsored a plan for a zemskii sobor (actually devised by Aksakov and P. D. Golokhovastov) but was ousted in turn, to be replaced by Dmitrii Tolstoy in May r882. Tolstoy's forced retirement as minister of education in April r88o had marked Loris-Melikov's first major victory; modern historians often set the beginning of the "reaction of the eighties" from his reinstatement in r882. The government had come full circle. The hopes voiced at the Pushkin Celebration were crushed, the liberals' worst fears realized. According to the historian Richard Pipes, the measures taken against terrorism during the period of crisis and "thaw" of r8y8-r88r, which included Loris-Melikov's reorganization of the secret police, laid "the legal and institutional bases ... for a bureaucratic-police regime with totalitarian overtones that have not been dismantled since."9 Under Tolstoy's new "temporary" press laws of August r882, the leading outlets for liberal and radical opinion were systematically silenced, with the help of E. M. Feoktistov, the conservative head of censorship appointed in early r883. Tolstoy closed Galas, the most popular and influential of the proreform papers, which had begun in r863; he then banned Strana, an outspoken proponent of a free press and constitutionalism, born during the thaw of r88o. Tolstoy capped off his campaign against the press later in r883 by shutting down Saltykov's Otechestvennye zapiski; Mikhailovsky was simultaneously exiled from Petersburg. The Russian daily press, subject to harsh new economic penalties for any political deviations, entered a new phase of existence. Denied its role as political forum, the press subsequently grew increasingly professionalized and commercial, catering to the demands of an expanding and more diversified reading public. 10

Two Public Funerals The deaths of Dostoevsky and Turgenev, heroes of the Pushkin Celebration, also marked the end of an age in Russia's cultural and

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

I

5I

political life. Dostoevsky did not live to see the end of the "thaw"; he died on January 28, r88r, one month before the assassination. His popularity was still on the upswing, and his funeral became a big public event. As up to a hundred thousand spectators looked on, seventy to one hundred delegations and fifteen choirs led a procession of tens of thousands through Petersburg to the Alexander Nevsky monastery, where Vladimir Solov'ev, Orest Miller and others gave speeches over his grave. 11 Pobedonostsev, Abaza, Saburov, several grand dukes and other high state officials attended church services for the novelist the next day, and the tsar granted the widow an annual pension of two thousand rubles and free tuition for the children in state schools. Dostoevsky's popularity continued to balloon during the eighties and nineties and was commonly associated with the upswing in conservative ideology.l 2 Somewhat paradoxically, during the period of reaction that followed the revolution of 1905, Dostoevsky's ideas helped inspire a new generation of Russian liberals. The Vekhi (Landmarks) group of repentant Marxists, who included Peter Struve, Sergei Bulgakov, and Nikolai Berdiaev, consciously embraced Dostoevsky's diagnosis of the intelligentsia's moral deviation as outlined in his Pushkin Speech. 13 They attempted to resuscitate Russian liberalism and a respect for law on the basis of Orthodox, idealistic philosophy-a combination Turgenev and Dostoevsky had been so unable to envisage in r88o. Turgenev visited Russia without fanfare one last time in r88r, and died in Bougival, France, on September 3, r883 (August 21 on Russia's Julian calendar). The story of Turgenev's posthumous fate presents perhaps the most fitting commentary on the man whom many in r88o called the "worthy heir to Pushkin." The return of his body to Russia for burial seems a bizarre repetition of the actions the tsarist government had taken forty-six years earlier to prevent public demonstrations of grief over Pushkin's death. During the five weeks between Turgenev's death and his burial in St. Petersburg, the question of how he was to be honored developed into a major public issue. 14 Hoping to embarrass the Russian government and perhaps to prevent them from using Turgenev's popularity to their advantage, the exiled revolutionary Peter Lavrov told a French newspaper that Turgenev had subsidized his emigre paper Vpered (which indeed was the case). Lavrov's statement was reprinted by Katkov and sparked wide discussion in Russia, adding to the already heightened interest in Turgenev's last return. At the same time, Lavrov and a group of political emigres made an osten-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

52

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

tatious public appearance at the funeral service conducted in Paris, calculated to embarrass the Russian ambassador Prince Orlov and other tsarist officials who attended. Alexander Ill's government took the bait and greatly overreacted, assuming that demonstrations of respect for Turgenev were synonymous with antigovernrnent protest. Turgenev's body was returned to Russia under strict police surveillance. V. K. Plehve, head of the police, cabled strict orders that officials "take especially circumspect measures, [allowing] no publicity, so that ... there are no ceremonial meetings" to greet the train bringing Turgenev's body through Vilensk and Pskov to Petersburg for burial.I 5 Large crowds assembled, however, at almost every stop on the way. The governor of Pskov wrote back to Plehve that at the present time it seems more than problematic to put off completely the meeting at the railway station when Turgenev's body is brought through Pskov. At its meeting of August 26 [old style] the [Pskov city] duma ordered the city government to perform a solemn panikhida at the railway station when the body arrives, and to lay a wreath on the coffin in the city's name. Several educational institutions also propose to lay wreaths, as do the editorial boards of several newspapers published in Pskov and of the ecclesiastical journal "Istina." Newspaper reports about what is going on in Petersburg, telegrams from various parts of Russia concerning the opening of schools named for Turgenev and various projects connected with his name without doubt have also had their influence on local society, which considers it its moral duty to render its own measure of respect to the memory of Turgenev (exclusively as a writer). To give the proposed meeting a more humble character, I hope to have the possibility to prevent the panikhida, which would strictly speaking have constituted the [most] ostentatious part of the meeting, and I will advise that people abstain from making speeches as the wreaths are presented; but to prevent the laying on of wreaths itself I consider untimely, if we do not wish to act in the present affair in an official manner. In essence, I think that because the train will stop at the Pskov station for such a short time, everything will be managed quite simply and quietly; but together with this we must not lose sight of the fact that [many newspaper] correspondents have appeared here, who inform the northern [Petersburg telegraph] agency of all developments, often in a false or distorted perspective. Without doubt, they will telegraph St. Petersburg about the transport of Turgenev's body through Pskov and the meeting, and I am sure in advance that they will try to give these things as broad and triumphal a significance as they can, a significance that in essence will not be there. There is no possibility of my controlling the dispatches, for which reason it would be desirable if the news of what happens in Pskov be edited in Petersburg before getting into the newspapers.16

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

I

53

Things had come full circle since police agents had smuggled Pushkin's body into Pskov, likewise attempting to defuse public reaction to his death. Lavrov noted with clear satisfaction the government's inability either to openly prevent demonstrations of support, to take upon itself the organizing of the funeral, or even to hide its "impotent and hesitating resistance to a ceremony in which all appositional forces in Russia took part." Despite extensive police measures to control and discourage public reaction to Turgenev's return, there was a tremendous turnout to watch the funeral procession through the streets of St. Petersburg; estimates went as high as four hundred thousand. One hundred seventy-six deputations marched from the train station to the Volkovo cemetery, where speeches and poems were read over his grave.l7 The next day the Lit Fund held a literary evening in Turgenev's memory, and the OLRS also decided to hold a public session to honor him. Iur'ev asked Leo Tolstoy to speak. On his deathbed Turgenev had written Tolstoy a now famous letter imploring his friend not to abandon Russian literature, and Tolstoy deeply regretted the loss of his old friend, for all their basic ideological and literary disagreements. Tolstoy agreed to come and planned a major address. The papers predicted a packed hall for the session. The new head censor Feoktistov warned Minister Tolstoy: "Tolstoy is a crazy man; you can expect anything of him; he could say all kinds of incredible things-and create a significant scandal. I make bold to address your excellency's attention to this. Should you not warn the Moscow governor-general ... to summon lur'ev and demand to examine the articles and speeches designated to be read? It would seem to be necessary to take precautionary measures, because lur'ev and [OLRS secretary V. A.] Gol'tsev, taking refuge behind Tolstoy, are capable of anything." 18 The minister agreed, and ordered Dolgorukov to do as Feoktistov suggested in order to prevent "an undesirable demonstration." Dolgorukov spoke with Iur'ev and relayed lur'ev's comments that Messrs. Gol'tsev and Count Tolstoy could reply to the request that they present the articles and speeches they prepared for the session [for censoring by saying] that they do not have them in manuscript. Later, at the session itself, having gained the floor, they could present something prepared beforehand as if it were an improvisation, and ... to refuse them at that moment the right to give their speeches would be embarrassing, since it would stimulate undesirable rumors among the public. I would prefer-in agreement with Mr. Iur'ev-to call off the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

54

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

proposed session. To this end, it has been announced that the session has been postponed for an indefinite time. The formal reason put forward for this is that those who want to take part in the session with speeches and articles are not yet ready to do so. 19

This session, it seems needless to say, never took place.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I

8 87: Pushkin Becomes Public Property

The Pushkin Celebration of I 88o left a powerful legacy in the form of Pushkin's popularity. It took some time, however, for its scope and implications to become apparent. The shockingly bitter polemics in the press over how to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Pushkin's death in I887 reflected both new political rivalries and the growing perception of the economic as well as political value of Pushkin's name. In December r886 a venomous quarrel began as a group of surviving liberal periodicals-led by Nedelia, Russkaia mysl', and Istoricheskii vestnik-called for a large celebration, while Novae vremia backed by such prominent literary figures as Iakov Grot, Goncharov, Grigorovich, and Maikov, rejected the idea on the grounds that it was improper to celebrate the day of the great poet's death. G. Gradovsky, Mikhnevich, and Peter Veinberg of Novosti tried to form a commission to initiate a dinner, still (as the Soviet commentator I. la. Aizenshtok noted) "practically the only form of intercourse among the intelligentsia that the tsarist government permitted."20 But Novae vremia mounted such a campaign against the idea that the commission was forced to disband. According to Aizenshtok, the government feared the idea of a new Pushkin Celebration and took steps itself to prevent one, whether organized on official or private initiative. Secret circulars distributed among the ministries and among selected individuals within the OLRS, the Lit Fund, and other literary organizations warned that such celebrations were to be discouraged. The actual anniversary day, January 29, I887, passed very quietly. Prayers for Pushkin were conducted in many churches and in most academic institutions, and universities and scholarly societies held their own special commemorative sessions. On the next day, however, when the fifty-year copyright on Pushkin's works expired, there was pandemonium at the bookstores. It suddenly became quite clear

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

I

55

just how popular Pushkin had become. At Suvorin's Novoe Vremia bookstore on Nevsky Prospect in St. Petersburg, which had advertised its own, inexpensive new edition of Pushkin, riots actually broke out. Despite extra sales help, prepackaged books, and other precautions, when the doors opened, reported Suvorin's paper, the store could not handle the mobs:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The salespeople and cashiers were run off their feet; some members of the public climbed up onto the tables and over the counters, and grabbed their change themselves. By 11 [A.M.] the store presented a picture of havoc: there were mounds of ripped apart, soiled books that had been trampled heaped up in disorder in the corners and on the counters, books that they hadn't managed to clear away in time; there was smashed furniture that had been thrown onto the floor; and the cashier's booth was knocked over, and the financial record books all crumpled and stamped upon. Attempts to reason [with the crowd] had had no effect. 21

By noon, with the help of the police, the entire stock of six thousand books was sold out and the store was closed. It was a half-day unparalleled in history of the Russian book trade. In the fifty years after Pushkin's death, the total number of copies of his works sold had not exceeded so- or 6o,oooi of these, only an estimated 20- or 30,ooo remained in private handsi the rest were in libraries or had not survived.22 This one day, asserts Aizenshtok, did more for Pushkin's fame than all the monuments erected in Moscow, Petersburg, and Odessa put together. In Petersburg alone, more than ro,ooo copies of Pushkin's "complete works"-roo,ooo volumes in all-were sold. During the next two to three days, five new editions came out, each of about 40,ooo copiesi the next ones were published in even larger numbers. These figures refer only to the various "complete works"i the publisher L. N. Pavlenkov, writing in r888, counted up 163 different Pushkin titles in the previous year, totaling I,48I,375 copies, and my own calculations, based on a Soviet bibliography published in 1949, indicate that Pavlenkov may have been short by as much as r million. 23 With r2,677,538 books published in Russian for the year, I calculate that from r2 to rS percent of them were by Pushkin.24 Spearheaded by the surging demand for Pushkin's works, Russian publishing by absolute or relative standards expanded at a rate fantastic for any country. By the eve of World War I, the Russian publishing industry, second only to that

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I

56

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

of Germany, was outpublishing Great Britain, France, and the United States combined.2s The polemics of I887 grew especially vicious because Skabichevsky (who wrote for Novosti) and Suvorin (who published Novae vremia) had opposing vested interests in new editions of Pushkin's works. Suvorin, already known for his blatant opportunism, combined political and financial expediency in trying to compromise his rival. He accused Skabichevsky of plagiarizing from the edition of Pushkin the Lit Fund was preparing.26 He also charged that Skabichevsky, who had been Pisarev's friend and classmate at the university, had supported Pisarev's attacks on Pushkin and therefore had no right to celebrate Pushkin's memory. As proof Suvorin cited a sympathetic biographical article about Pisarev which Skabichevsky had written in I869, shortly after Pisarev's untimely death.27 Suvorin declared piously that he himself (he used the editorial "we") had "never advocated such thingsi Pushkin always seemed to us the god of contemporary literature, and we could not but protest when we saw how they want to use his name for their personal ends, and not in the name of allliterature." 28 During the I 88o celebration several conservative groups had made halfhearted attempts to claim the poet as their own, which had been met with the liberals' scorn. 29 In I887 Suvorin directly pandered to the most reactionary elements in Russian society and joined with others in the press who took it upon themselves to "defend" Pushkin against Nihilists in liberal clothing. Russian intellectuals had long recognized the potential political and moral power of literature. Most Russian teachers, under the influence of Belinsky and the Positivists, had seen the importance of Russian writers "as educational material" (as V. S. Ostrogorsky termed it in the title of his well-known textbook). 30 Even Chernyshevsky, while extremely skeptical of the Pushkin cult, could appreciate the strong streak of eighteenth-century "enlightenment" in Pushkin's works and their value for inculcating civic virtue, enough to publish (albeit anonymously) a short didactic essay on Pushkin's "life and works."31 A strong "enlightenment" undercurrent ran through the r88o Pushkin Celebration itself, oriented as it was, at least in part, toward promoting Pushkin's popularity among the youth. During the preparations for the I88o celebration, Ostrogorsky, himself a major popularizer of Pushkin, reminded his readers that "in all of our educational institutions, Pushkin has been placed in our study of literature as the cornerstone of the entire

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

157

literary education [postavlen kraeugol'nym kamenem (somewhat like a monument!)]." Bewailing the dearth of decent, inexpensive editions of Pushkin's works, Ostrogorsky summoned the intelligentsia to fulfill its "civic responsibility." While Russian society might be apathetic and slothful, and the spheres in which it could act very limited, he said, "there is one sphere-and a very important one-in which it can act unyieldingly, energetically, and in the highest degree fruitfully. This sphere is the enlightenment of the Russian land." He called for the intelligentsia to ensure that "Pushkin's works-his 'complete works' as well as separate editions-be found in sufficient number of copies in every single school library and in every single even partly educated and not entirely poor family." 32 After the copyright ran out in r887, the intelligentsia got its chance. Popularizing Pushkin and the Russian "classics" became a significant part of the "small works" movement. Its reasoning was largely that which Ostrogorsky had presented: with political activity impossible (or illegal), here was a channel into which educated society could direct its energy to do some real-if piecemeal-good, slowly preparing the Russian people for a responsible future. Such a mission had great appeal for the intelligentsia, which, as a class set apart by education, could not help (in the words of Iulii Martov) "feeling and recognizing itself to be the bearer of that cultural progress which had broken the foundations of serfdom and led Russia into the family of civilized nations. " 3 3 Furthermore, this was an area in which the interests of the state and the intelligentsia ostensibly coincided. Pushkin's works were recognized as a useful tool for bringing non-Russian nationalities as well as the Russian peasantry itself into the "Europeanized" Russian secular culture of its educated classes. As the intelligentsia turned to smaller works and the radicals burrowed further underground, the study of Pushkin became more specialized and professionalized, much like Russian journalism. The collection of manuscripts and Pushkiniana that had gone into the OLRS exhibit in r88o provided a major impetus for the systematic collection, categorization, and study of Pushkin's heritage. After the exhibit Bartenev persuaded Pushkin's son Alexander Aleksandrovich to donate most of his father's papers to the Rumiantsev Museum and the Moscow Public Library. The study of these documents laid the basis for all subsequent work on the poet and, as the editing of Voltaire, Shakespeare, and Goethe had done in their respective

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

58

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

countries, catalyzed the creation of a national academic literary tradition. By the I 89os a specialized class of professional"Pushkinists" had come into being, as courses on the writer penetrated the university curriculum. Pushkin was fast becoming an official national institution.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Tsarist Pushkin Jubilee of r 899 By I899 the tsarist state had also realized how powerful Pushkin could be and recast the literary holiday into its modern Russian aspect as an official political and ideological tool. Reportedly on the direct initiative of the tsar, the Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, created a Pushkin Commission to organize a massive Pushkin Centennial celebration.3 4 The commission was headed by the academy president, Grand Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, and staffed by high government officials (S. Yu. Witte, N. P. Blagolepov), professors (A. F. Koni, M. I. Sukhomlinov, Veselovsky, Pypin, A. A. Shakhmatov), the director of the imperial theaters, the rector of Petersburg University, Ostrogorsky, and a few editor-publishers including Stasiulevich and Suvorin. They put together a Pushkin Jubilee of unprecedented proportions, mobilizing the school system throughout the empire. The activities were not limited to Moscow, Petersburg, and a few provincial capitals as in I88o; during the I899 Pushkin Centennial, commented one journalist, "it would be hard to indicate one geographical point on the broad expanse from the Pacific to the Baltic, and from Finland to the Afghan border where, if there was even the slightest suspicion of public life, there was not some reaction to the Pushkin Jubilee."35 The I899 jubilee was broadly aimed at acculturating the Russian and non-Russian masses and brought Pushkin to the remotest corners of the empire. Jubilee events both in the capitals and in the provinces included church services, public meetings with lectures, theatrical performances, school and university celebrations, public readings for the folk, the renaming of streets and the opening of libraries and schools in Pushkin's name, the state's purchase of Pushkin's family estate at Mikhailovskoe, the establishing of Pushkin scholarships and prizes, the issuing of commemorative medals, and so on. The state also mass-produced busts and pictures of the poet, as well as copies of his works which were distributed free to schoolchildren (in

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

159

some cases, along with chocolate bars impressed with Pushkin's likeness) on the day of the anniversary. Many intelligentsia commentators noted with distress the emergence of a new kind of "official nationality," which used Pushkin as its banner.36 The state adopted the reactionaries' simplistic image of Pushkin as staunch supporter of tsarism and favorite son of Nicholas I, and took steps to promote and defend "its" Pushkin. It carefully controlled the use of Pushkin's works for public readings and in Russian schools, and when at a jubilee session in Moscow the wellknown Pushkinist V. la. Iakushin lectured on Pushkin's close ties to the Decembrist movement (a thesis he had aired as early as r886), he was severely reprimanded and exiled from the city.37 Many observers in the press saw little reason to join in such a celebration. They rejected the centennial as trashy, artificial, and false. Commentators noted with dismay how not only the state but every small group in Russia tried to exploit Pushkin for its own ends and how the jubilee had become a series of "private" and unconnected celebrations, divorced from the real needs of Russian letters and society. Also dissenting from the celebration were a number of Russian clergymen who considered Pushkin an atheist, and a few fringe revolutionary groups that could not, however, muster much enthusiasm against the poet. 38 The public image of Pushkin had become quite confused and contradictory, owing to the now quite complex and disunified Russian reading public, the unsettled state of Pushkin scholarship, and to the many contradictory notions about Pushkin then in circulation. Many looked back on r88o as a time of relative unity and freedom, or at least a time when the happy illusion that (as Ostrovsky had proclaimed) "it's our turn to celebrate" was still possible. A terrible sense of helplessness had spread through Russian intellectual life, exacerbated by the widespread famine sweeping many provinces at the time. For many educated Russians the jubilee evoked despair over the abyss that still separated them from the ignorant and suffering masses: "Literature is alien to the narod, which feels no necessity for it; the upper levels of the peoplethe so-called public [obshchestvo]-has been rendered so impotent by its own inner emptiness that it doesn't feel the necessity, or find in itself the ability or strength to inspire in the people's souls the cultural ideal already worked out by previous generations, or [even] to help prepare the people to accept it." Culture "in its highest sense" must "be inculcated" into the mass of the people, who still

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

!60

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

live outside the flow of contemporary life. But (concluded this commentator) "there is no reason to be horrified at this. We should merely recognize it as a fact, and await Pushkin's two hundredth anniversary, by which time perhaps the narod will find it necessary, or be forced to accept civilization."39 Unlike in r88o, the leading Russian writers took no part in the r 899 centennial, and many specifically distanced themselves from the official celebration and the vulgarization of Pushkin. In a spring r899 issue of Mir iskusstva dedicated to Pushkin's jubilee, Dmitrii Merezhkovsky, Vasilii Rozanov, Fedor Sologub, and the critic N. Minsky (N. M. Vilenkin) published articles about Pushkin, for the most part repudiating the crude image of Pushkin which was being projected during the jubilee. 40 Merezhkovsky's well-known essay "Pushkin" of r896 had defined Russian literature as a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to return to the true cultural ideal represented by the poet; the profanation of Pushkin in 1899 seemed a confirmation of its failure. The Symbolists' interest in Pushkin helped propel him once again into the center of Russian literary life, where he has remained throughout much of the twentieth century. In the thirty years that followed the 1899 jubilee, Pushkin played an important role in the literary biographies of virtually every important writer-Alexander Blok, Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova, Sergei Esenin, Vladimir Maiakovsky, Osip Mandel'shtam, Boris Pasternak-and figured in debates over Russian literature fought by Marxists, Futurists, Acmeists, Formalists, Proletarians, and many other factions, right up until the enforced regimentation of literature in the Stalinist period, when the literary holiday-with Pushkin again leading the way-became a fundamental part of the state's cultural program.

A Farewell to Pushkin In revolution-ravaged Petrograd of 1921 a group of writers and literary people gathered at the "House of Literati" for a modest Pushkin celebration to express both their ties to the traditions of r88o and their consciousness that those traditions were being sundered forever. These "Pushkin Days," commemorating the eightyfourth anniversary of Pushkin's death, consisted of a series of small meetings in which the poets Blok, Sologub, Akhmatova, Vladislav

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

I6I

Khodasevich, Mikhail Kuzmin, and several leading Pushkin scholars presented speeches, lectures, and poetry readings. 41 They symbolized for many of the participants a farewell to what Khodasevich called "the Petrine and Petersburg period of Russian history," to the traditions of Pushkin's Russia and the old intelligentsia which the civil war and revolution were obliterating. "Pushkin will arise in gigantic stature," predicated Khodasevich in his speech.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

National pride in him will flow into indestructible bronze forms-but that closeness, that heart-felt tenderness with which we loved Pushkin will never be known to coming generations. They will not be granted this joy .... The heightened interest in the words of the poet which was felt during the past several years arose, perhaps, from a premonition, from an insistent need: partly to decipher Pushkin while it is not yet too late, while the tie with his time is not yet lost forever; and partly, it seems to me, it was suggested by the same premonition: we are agreeing to what call we should answer, how we should communicate with each other in the oncoming darkness. 42 In what was to be his last public speech, Blok spoke on "the mission of the poet" as bequeathed to Russia by Pushkin. Building monuments and writing literary manifestoes, he said, were irrelevant to a poet, who like Pushkin does not engage in serving the "outer world." The poet's freedom is inner and "secret." "Often our hearts contract in pain at the thought of Pushkin: the festive, triumphal process of a poet who could not hinder the outer world, for his endeavor-culture-was an inward endeavor. This procession was disturbed all too often by the grim interference of people for whom a stove-pot is more precious than God .... Pushkin grew weak, and with him the culture of his time-the only period of culture in Russia of the last centurygrew weak too .... Pushkin was not killed by d'Anthes' bullet. He was killed by the lack of air. His culture was dying with him." 4 3 It was clear to all in 1921 that Blok was presenting a grim epitaph to the revolution, his own career, and to prerevolutionary Russian culture, whose highest achievement he felt was Pushkin. Blok and Khodasevich and their confreres believed they were living through what the critic Renato Poggioli has called "the twilight of poetry and art" in Russia. 44 Six months after his speech Blok died, and less than a year after that Khodasevich joined the wave of artists and writers forced to leave the country. Their contemporary Osip Mandel'shtam, who remained (only to perish in a Stalinist labor camp in 1938), defined his artistic credo-Acmeism-in very similar terms. He called it

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

62

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

"the yearning for world culture [toska po mirovoi kul'ture]"-implying that world culture, clearly personified for his artistic generation in Pushkin, no longer had any place in Russia. In his speech at the same Pushkin Days of I92I during which Blok and Khodasevich expressed their fear that a true understanding of Pushkin would die with the revolution, the brilliant young scholar Boris Eikhenbaum argued that the new sense of distance from the past was necessary in order to gain true objectivity toward Pushkin. Such a perspective was needed in order to put an end to the stultifying hegemony of the cliche-ridden Belinskian critical tradition, which had reduced Pushkin not even to a monument but to a pathetic "plaster statuette that decorated the boulevards."45 Around the turn of the century Valerii Briusov, Andrei Bely, and many other leading writers made major contributions to Pushkin scholarship, which by World War I had become a full-fledged academic speciality and continued to grow. The period from about I900 until the late I930S became a kind of golden age for Pushkin studies, with both the pioneering theoretical work of Eikhenbaum and lurii Tynianov and the contributions of two generations of dedicated Pushkinists-including N. 0. Lerner, B. L. Modzalevsky, P. E. Shchegolev, B. I. Tomashevsky, M. A. Tsiavlovsky, Iu. G. Oksman, and S. M. Bondiwho worked to establish the definitive Pushkin canon and to reexamine critically the poet's entire creative biography.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Stalin's Sovietization of Pushkin The process of turning the literary holiday into an official instrument of political and cultural policy begun in I 899 reached its zenith under Stalin in the late I930s, when the gigantic and qualitatively different public stature that Khodasevich foresaw for Pushkin may be seen to have come to pass. The totalitarian state, able to mobilize every part of society, turned the hundredth anniversary of Pushkin's death into a key event in its program of cultural transformation and a milestone in the drive to make Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union literate. Already by the end of collectivization, the Soviet state had discarded all notions of building a distinctly "proletarian culture" and embarked upon a tremendously ambitious program of "socialist education" based squarely upon the Russian classics, whose relevance had been subject to debate during the early years of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

163

Soviet power. Similar in its basic form to the Pushkin Jubilee of 1899, the Pushkin Centennial of 1937 was meant to encompass all the people and to reinforce the government's cultural and political program. A literary celebration of new and fantastic dimensions developed.46 It was intended that the message of Pushkin-tailored to meet immediate ideological concerns-should reach virtually every man, woman, and child in the country. Whereas in 1899 the state had exaggerated Pushkin's political support for tsarism, now Pushkin's death and the falsification of his heritage were counted among the old regime's cardinal sins. Pushkin was hailed by official decree of the Party's Central Committee as "creator of the Russian literary language," "father of new Russian literature," forerunner of communism and herald of the glorious socialist present. 47 Great emphasis was put on Pushkin scholarship, as several ambitious projects, including a definitive edition of the poet's works, were inaugurated in connection with the jubilee. Initial planning had begun in August 1934, simultaneous with the First All-Union Writers Congress, which had put all of Soviet literature under direct political control and established the doctrine of socialist realism. The All-Union Pushkin Committee formed at that time under the presidency of Maxim Gorky was charged by the government with "working out a series of measures to commemorate A. S. Pushkin's memory among the peoples of the USSR and to promote the broad popularization of his works among the workers."4 8 In 1937 it was not merely a question of holding a tremendous celebration for Pushkin's anniversary but of establishing, literally, a "Pushkin Year," with activities and ceremonies designed to bring Pushkin "to the people" taking place throughout the year in every part of the country. Virtually every theater in every republic of the Soviet Union dedicated plays, operas, and concerts to the poet. Every class in every school organized its own special Pushkin programs and activities; they staged school productions of his works, mounted special exhibits and created Pushkin libraries, went on pilgrimages to the "Pushkin places," wrote poetry to him and drew illustrations to his works. Extraordinary efforts were made to mobilize Pushkin activities at collective farms and factories, where party representatives and local committees sponsored study groups, meetings, plays, readings, lectures, libraries, and trips; prizes were offered for the best "Pushkin" newspaper, which many factories had their workers pub-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I64

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

lish. 4 9 Movies, novels, plays, and volumes of poetry about Pushkin's life were produced in a score of different languages. Pravda ran a special series of editorials about the poet during I936 and I937, and together with news of Fascists and enemies of the people, the airwaves, newspapers, and magazines were filled with stories about Pushkin and Pushkin events. Farms, factories, schools, streets, parks, squares, airplanes, ships, and theaters (among other things) were named for the poet. The number of copies of Pushkin's works published in the USSR during the I 9 3 6 and I 9 3 7 soared to I 9 million, of which almost 3 million were in languages other than Russian. so During the Soviet period the idea of the literary celebration took on new meaning and scope, based as it was upon "socialist" assumptions about the nature of the literary process and of culture itself. In his introduction to a collection of articles on Pushkin and Russian culture published in I967, the prominent Soviet Pushkinist Boris Meilakh described culture as "not only the totality of society's achievements in the individual areas of literature, science, or art, but a system of formative principles for using these achievements in the interests of the people, the nation, and of the progressive movement of history as well. It is precisely in this sense that Pushkin constitutes an outstanding phenomenon."Sl In other words, "culture" represents a fixed "system of formative principles" to be used as a tool for achieving certain predetermined ends. During the thirties and forties nearly fifty different national groups in the Soviet Union became literate for the first time, and Pushkin assumed a central place in the process of their acculturation. Just as Western European literature and language had served as a model for the new national language and literature that Pushkin and Russia had adopted, so now, in an analogous way, these "new" nationalities of the USSR received "instant" literacy and literatures through the intermediary of Pushkin in translation, entering into a European mode of literary life via its Russian-Pushkinist recension. In view of the ambitious cultural transformation being engineered, the Pushkin Celebration of I88o seemed inconsequential. On the one hand, it was depicted as pitifully small and isolated, unrepresentative, limited to "a handful of intelligenty" and incomparable to the current holiday; on the other, it was dismissed together with the I899 centennial as a holiday of "synodal choristers, innkeepers, high officials in uniforms sewn with gold, and all the other descendants of Bulgarin, Benkendorf, and Senkovsky [reactionary figures of Push-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

I65

kin's day]."52 Dostoevsky's politically repellent manipulation of Pushkin was broadly denounced. The old Pushkin holidays, it was said (echoing Mikhailovsky's denunciation of Dostoevsky in I88o), "were bureaucratic, police 'celebrations,'" mockeries, "a torment for the poet's memory and insulting for culture, celebrations that the priests and reactionary bureaucrats used to smear the shining image of the poet-rebel with icon oil."S3 The Party line in I937 was to deny any redeeming features to tsarism while creating a mythologized, heroic view of the past. In the thirties not only was the old intelligentsia physically annihilated but its great intellectual, cultural and political successes were systematically dismissed-or rather, claimed as the achievement of the Soviet state and its radical forebears alone. Credit for the country's cultural revolution could be shared with no one. The achievements of the prerevolutionary intelligentsia in popularizing Pushkin and spreading literacy were systematically denigrated as worthless. The Pushkin Celebration of r88o-"holiday of the Russian intelligentsia"also fell victim to this rewriting of history. Characteristic was the declaration of V. L. Komarov, president of the Academy of Sciences, at a session dedicated to Pushkin on February I 4, I 9 37, in which he praised the Red Army for keeping the Fascists at bay: "Long live the Red Army, whose fighters are more interested in Pushkin than the liberal bourgeoisie of the past-which thought it had a monopoly on education-was ever interested in him!" 54 The intelligentsia as a class did not fit into traditional Marxist categories, and was facilely grouped with the a priori hateful bourgeoisie, whose selfish economic motives canceled out any beneficent effect their actions might have had. Perhaps symbolically, the Strastnoi monastery was tom down and Pushkin Square (so named in I 9 3 I) broadened. At the same time, the original verses from "I have erected a monument to myself ... " replaced Zhukovsky's rewritten version on the pedestal. The new unveiling, on February Io, I93 7, declared Pravda, "was like a second opening of the monument to the poet," that is, an infinitely superior one. ss Strange as it may seem, Pushkin's "shining image" was singled out as a model for "the new Soviet man." It is suggestive that the Pushkin Year coincided with the height of the show trials and the purges directed against the last of the surviving prerevolutionary intelligentsia.56 In a way the two were complementary phenomena: whereas the show trials created larger-than-life "enemies of the people,"

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

66

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Pushkin represented the positive hero. The cult of Pushkin, firmly established during the I937 jubilee, was perhaps its most enduring legacy. Izvestiia asked its readers, "How do we value Pushkin?" and answered: Not one feature of Pushkin's many-sided nature slips by the Soviet reader. He sees farther and deeper than many researchers and many everyday critics. He renders Pushkin his full due, as creator of the Russian literary language, father of new Russian literature, a genius who enriched humanity with his works. But beyond all these attributes the Soviet person seeks Pushkin his contemporary, he seeks in Pushkin for those traits that he thirsts to see in himself and in the daily life of Soviet society.... The Soviet reader sees in Pushkin his fellow citizen. He does not want to perceive Pushkin as a thing of the past, as a phenomenon that has receded into history _57

In this and a host of similar articles from I 9 37, Pushkin emerges as a quasi-divinity-a strikingly romantic, ahistorical, and un-Marxist sort of hero. We hear an echo of Dostoevsky's apocalyptic spirit in the conclusion to the speech of the poet Nikolai Tikhonov, delivered February II, I937, in the Bolshoi Theater: "And when we finally conquer the whole world, and all the nations bring the joyful names of their poets and writers of genius to the banquet of friendship, we will remember you, Pushkin, first at our universal celebration! "58

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The Pushkin Campaign of I949 The next great Pushkin Jubilee, of I949, was institutionally a massive replay of I937 and ideologically a heavy-handed attempt to make Pushkin conform to a narrow Party line. The jubilee of 1949 reflected the emphasis on the patriotism and greatness of the Russian people which had been promoted since the war, when Pushkin's name had repeatedly been invoked as national hero. It mirrored as well the postwar ideological crackdown led by Andrei Zhdanov, which was accompanied by an anti-Semitic campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" and a new wave of purges. In 1949 the process of "Sovietizing" Pushkin and asserting a monolithic socialist culture under his aegis may said to have reached its saturation point. The Pushkin propaganda of I 949 made hyperbolic claims about the superiority of Russian culture (e.g., Pushkin as the world's first and greatest "realist" writer), and at the same time histrionically "unmasked"

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

167

ideological deviators and doubters. The direct intervention of the Party in defining the tasks for Pushkin study, a precedent set in the 1930s, was probably never so broadly and strongly felt as now, at a time when Stalin was accelerating his notorious interference throughout Soviet science and academia. An annual All-Union Pushkin Conference for scholars was instituted. At the introductory session N. F. Bel'chikov reiterated in turgid officialese the political directives guiding Soviet Pushkinism:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

The historic decisions of the TsK VKP(b) [Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)] on ideological questions; the report by Comrade Zhdanov about the journals "Zvezda" and "Leningrad" [in 1946, denouncing Akhmatova and Zoshchenko, and inaugurating the period of "Zhdanovism"]; and the announcements in the Party press unmasking the antipatriotic group of cosmopolitan critics; [all of these] have given us invaluable aid in the battle against formalism, cosmopolitanism, comparativism, and other idealistic views of Pushkin's works, and directed our scholarship toward the correct and fruitful path of studying Pushkin's historical uniqueness and his independence from foreign influences. 5 9 Pushkin was to be "cleansed" from alien ideologies and, like the Russian people who had heroically and single-handedly withstood the German invasion, glorified for his indigenous greatness. Simplistic correlations of literature and politics reached grotesque new heights. In what might seem like a grim parody of the famous Stalinist slogan, one eminent Soviet Marxist critic proclaimed that "in his literary development Pushkin not only caught up with, but surpassed Western Europe."60 Propagandizing Pushkin and his works also quantitatively reached unprecedented proportions. Alexander Fadeev, general secretary of the Writers Union and president of the All-Union Pushkin Committee that oversaw the jubilee, declared in a keynote address given at the Bolshoi Theater that "now on the average every family in our country has the works of Pushkin."61 The number of copies of Pushkin's works published for the year rose to 45 million, and the official bibliography dedicated exclusively to the jubilee year runs to over five hundred pages, with more than 3,8oo entries.62 It includes listings of Pushkin's works published in forty-four languages of the Soviet Union; a flood of articles, lectures, brochures, essays, and editorials; poems, novels, stories, and plays on Pushkinian themes or about Pushkin himself; works by Pushkin presented on stage, in

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

68

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

film, or on the radio, or put to music and dance; depictions of Pushkin in sculpture, on canvas, in political cartoons, graphic and applied arts; illustrations of his life and works; and so on. Jubilee eventsmonument openings, dedications, exhibitions, competitions-were held across the USSR throughout the year. Pushkin museums were opened in the "city-monument" Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoe Selo, renamed in I93 7) and at Mikhailovskoe, where what had remained of Pushkin's family estate was rebuilt after its destruction by the Nazis.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Problems in Pushkinism after Stalin As a phenomenon of popular culture Pushkin and everything connected with him-including literary commemorations-have continued to be the focus of unflagging interest in the Soviet Union. Pushkin's conveniently short life span (thirty-seven years) guaranteed a relatively close succession of "large" ("All-Union") jubilee dates, which were celebrated in I 962 (I 2 5 years from his death), I 97 4 (I75 years from his birth), and most recently, the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Pushkin's death in I987. Yearly commemorations are held on his birthday at Mikhailovskoe and on the day of his death at the apartment where he died in Leningrad; and there is an annual AllUnion Pushkin Celebration of Poetry (held since I966), a yearly scholarly All-Union Pushkin Conference (since I949), and scores more of "little" Pushkin events around the country. Since World War 11 there has also been increasing interest in "Pushkin places," resulting in what one leading curator has labeled a Pushkin "museum boom" in the sixties and seventies. 63 By latest count there are now about twenty Pushkin museums in the USSR and a host of memorial sites throughout Russia and other parts of the Soviet Union (in Georgia, Armenia, Moldavia, the Ukraine); at many of them local jubilee dates are regularly commemorated. In I962 the number of volumes of Pushkin published in Russian topped 87 million, with about an additional IO million translated into sixty-nine other languages of the Soviet Union. The critic V. Nepomniashchy, noting a "strenuously growing and broadening interest in Pushkin," asserted in I974 that it would be hard to find one publication having anything to do with questions of art, literature, or culture as a whole-a new book, issue of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

169

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

a magazine, or newspaper-where Pushkin isn't written about, quoted, put in the epigraph, his authority not referred to, where his name, at least, does not flash past. It is impossible to buy his works in the stores [because they and all other books connected with Pushkin sell out so quickly] .... In the last few years Pushkin has more and more often become the hero or theme of works addressed to the widest possible audience: works of prose, poetry, publicism, essays, film, various gemes of popular "Pushkinology," plays and performances. One could say without exaggeration that this is all a truly mass phenomenon.64 At the same time, however, in the decades since Stalin's death, literary holidays have ceased to play any noticeable political role or have any appreciable influence on Russian literary or intellectual life, and there has been a reaction on the part of the creative intelligentsia against both the vulgar politicizing of Pushkin and the stultifying effects of official "jubilee culture" in general. The most obvious damaging consequences of the Stalinist celebrations and the view of literature they promoted have been felt in Pushkin scholarship. In a February 1987 interview, the deputy director of the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow nostalgically referred to the 1937 jubilee as "a kind of ideal," both in the way Pushkin accorded with the people's needs and as a time when Pushkin scholarship was given top national priority and a series of fundamental publications, including a definitive "full works," was initiated. 65 While the 1937 jubilee may have established a permanent Soviet Pushkin cult, however, the interference of politics with scholarship did lasting harm. The "Jubilee Edition," which was begun in the mid-thirties but . completed only in 1949, was repeatedly disrupted by politically motivated reshufflings of its staff and plagued by periodic purges of the Academy of Sciences, which took one of the main editors (Iu. G. Oksman).66 Furthermore, the decision to eliminate all commentary-taken after a first, trial, volume was heavily criticized on political grounds and removed from circulation-severely marred its value. And many of the other larger scholarly projects begun in the thirties remained (and still remain) unfinished.67 Not long before his death in 1957 Boris Tomashevsky, one of the best of the first generation of Soviet Pushkin scholars, decried the degeneration of Pushkin scholarship in the Soviet Union. He ascribed much of the problem to the late Stalinist period, and specifically to the political oversimplifications popularized in 1949, which

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

170

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

had uniformly reduced Pushkin to a formulaic "patriot, democrat, and realist" by relying on "cliches, clever sophisms, and requisite quotations." "Are we not indebted to this for the patina of dogmatism which clearly coats many scholarly works of the postwar years, and for a generation of young scholars who were reared in an atmosphere of dogmatizing and quotation-mongering?"68 Another scholar, writing in 1967, also criticized what was called the "literature of big dates," scholarship that treats literature as merely "a mechanical reflection of progressive national strivings," and which "replaces the scientifically based study of Pushkin with anniversary eulogizing and with a collection of standardized quotations that could be applied to the works of any writer of the past without distinction."69 He added that echoes of the problem were still being felt in the late sixties. Soviet Pushkinology, in fact, currently faces a major crisis. It seems highly doubtful that a revised academic edition can be produced in time for the two hundredth anniversary of Pushkin's birth in 1999. According to one leading literary official, the Academy of Science's Pushkin House, center for the project, is "catastrophically undermanned," and there is a generally recognized lack of competent specialists to do the job; there have not even been enough cadres to produce the crucial Pushkin bibliographies, none of which has been published since 1963.?° Furthermore, the popular interest in the minutiae of Pushkinology, which (in the words of the late D.D. Blagoi) has become "a nationwide occupation" in the Soviet Union, as well as the sheer mass of materials constantly produced concerning Pushkin's life and works (much of which mixes scholarship and publicism), makes the task of defining the historical Pushkin a formidable one.

Pushkin in the 1980s, "Our Spiritual Buttress" Nepomniashchy, writing in 1987, discussed the mixed legacy of the canonization of Pushkin who had become in the thirties "one of the fundamental values of state culture." On the one hand, he argued that the Pushkin of that day had corresponded to the needs of a revolutionary age, and was proud of the way Pushkin had become "an inseparable and necessary part of our everyday cultural life." At the same time, however, he noted that the continued politicizing of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

17 I

Pushkin, which turned him into merely "the artistic expression of Decembrist ideology," had caused Russian intellectuals to lose interest in the poet during the immediate post-Stalin period: "the deeper this conception took root, the more it was introduced as orthodoxy, the more platitudinous and simplified the poet seemed, and the more boring it became to read about him (and even to read his works), the more he came to resemble any other 'great writer,' 'transmitter' of whatever other 'ideas,' 'expressor' of whatever other 'tendencies.'" 71 The ideological need to reconcile the "remnants" of Pushkin which did not fit the narrow conception led, in Nepomniashchy's words, to a "rather unnatural" and "forced symbiosis of the most extreme politicization and a most extreme aestheticization." Everything that did not go to show Pushkin's progressive political views could be used to confirm "his 'artistic perfection,' realistic verisimilitude, psychological subtlety, harmony and 'mastery.'" This dualism, clearly deriving from Belinsky, is still very much in force in the modern Soviet view of Pushkin as evidenced during the celebrations of 1987, although the emphasis now is on the spiritual rather than the political, the personal rather than the social, and the cultural rather than the ideological. In his speech inaugurating the Pushkin Days of 1987, given at a session dedicated to Pushkin at the Bolshoi Theater, the Soviet minister of culture, V. G. Zakharov, related society's interest in Pushkin to the changes currently happening in the country: "The Days dedicated to Pushkin's memory which are triumphantly taking place in our cities and villages are organically in tune with the atmosphere of civic action, broad democracy, truth, and glasnost' which is being established in Soviet society. The most lofty humanism of his poetry is our loyal companion in the fight against spiritual corrosion and stagnation, and for the profound renewal of our entire life." 72 Zakharov's thesis reflects the consensus that since the late 196os Russian intellectuals have been "returning to Pushkin" and to the spiritual heritage of the Russian classics, what may be referred to as a "spiritual perestroika." Some critics have even contended that the new moral consciousness of Russian literature in the seventies and early eighties, closely associated with a return to the humanist tradition of the Russian classics, represented a kind of prelude to perestroika. 73 The spiritual heritage of Pushkin and the classics is no longer interpreted as demanding direct political struggle, however. In an article written during the 1987 jubilee, the poet Alexander Kushner

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I72

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

argued against the overly heavy burden politics traditionally placed on art in Russia:

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

We pride ourselves on the great Russian literature of the nineteenth century, which took the place of a democratic state system, legal consciousness, and political rights in Russia. Literature may have gained from this, but life did not. Literature in Russian was all of this, and a parliament too. Westernizers and Slavophiles-these were our Whigs and Tories, liberals and conservatives. Passion, sweat, the pathos of denunciation which on the benches of parliament leads to fisticuffs, newspaper feuds reflecting party battles-all of that was played out in our literature. Hence the irreconcilable conflicts and intolerance, which disturbed even Pushkin .... Literature, however, also lost something because of this surrogate function, and because of it often fell into preaching, moralizing, [sometimes even] pridefully renouncing itself .... Pushkin was forerunner [of those who rejected such didacticism], and in the early 182os defended poetry from moralizing dogmas in his argument with the Decembrists. "The aim of poetry-is poetry." Art does not think about its educational function-it is moral by its very nature .... It is ridiculous to try to substitute literature for the other spheres of social lifei the offensive against evil must be carried out along the entire front. This is part of the genuine notion of freedom.7 4

Just as the defense of Pushkin in the r86os had tried to broaden Belinsky's formulaic notion of Pushkin as "pure artist" to subsume civic, national, and ethical values, there is a marked trend in contemporary writing to focus on the personal moral and spiritual values in his poetry and to propagate a cult of Pushkin based on aesthetics. While the high Stalinist conception of Pushkin as the "bard of Decembrism" has largely faded, the attendant cult of Pushkin as a kind of secular god seems to have renewed its appeal among all levels of the population, from scholars, writers, intellectuals, and the avantgarde to the general public. Commenting on the massive, concentrated interest in Pushkin in r987, the writer Gleb Gorbovsky wrote that he had been afraid of "any sort of campaign, at which we were so adept in the recent past," but that then "the saving thought occurred to me: love for Pushkin is no campaign! ... It is Love for the one who expresses national feelings, for a spiritual Father, upon whom one can depend as on the Truth of earthly virtues. One may profess Pushkin, relying on him as on a Faith. Pushkin is a spiritual category and at the same time absolutely down to earth, that is, one's own, accessible, tangible, in idea and body. " 75 The literature on Pushkin

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

173

in 1987 is full of such "professions of faith" in the poet and the claim that Pushkin and his works act as a "spiritual buttress" against a soulless world, an "opposition to the world's lack of spirituality" and to the corruption of modem civilization. According to the actor Mikhail Ulianov, "for the ordinary man, not the genius, life is hard, and he needs support, he needs faith. Pushkin is that faith for us, beautiful and shining."76 Alexander Kushner tried to describe Russians' special relationship to Pushkin: "Once during the winter, standing by [Pushkin's] snow-covered grave at the Sviatogorsk monastery, I experienced a strange feeling. It was difficult, almost impossible for me to imagine that it was Pushkin lying here. What, could these be his remains? Far more natural to think of him as a divinity, resurrected after death, taken up into the heavens. He is dissolved in the air we breathe. He is in the bread we eat, the wine we drink. His verses are not really standing on our shelves. No, they are always with us, dissolved in our very blood."77 The intensely personal perspective broadens to comprehend all modem culture as a sacrament at Pushkin's altar. According to Nikolai Skatov, director of the Pushkin House and popularizer of the spiritual values of the Russian classics, "Pushkin is not merely a name but something without which our life itself is unthinkable." Before a gathering of Pushkin scholars, Skatov stressed that "perestroika as a process of renewing our spiritual culture has sharp need of Pushkin." 78 According to the writer and editor Sergei Zalygin, "Pushkinology is not only literaturology, it is Russianology, it is humanology, it is history and futurology."79 S. A. Fomichev, secretary of the Pushkin Commission, noted in an interview that "all manifestations of contemporary culture are tested and seen through him"i interest in Pushkin comes "not from above by [official] ukase, but from the promptings of the heart, from an inner need that unites and envelopes all of us."so He cited as an indication of what he elsewhere referred to as the current "boom in Pushkin" a projected three-volume edition of the poet to be published in an unprecedented press run of 10.7 million copies. Dozens more such claims for Pushkin's all-encompassing importance in Soviet life could be cited, and together with the continuing massive output of Pushkiniana, they seem to corroborate the hyperbolic claim that Pushkinism has become a prism through which all aspects of Soviet culture may be viewed-a world view or culture unto itself. The writer Andrei Bitov has recently commented:

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

74

RUSSIAN LITERARY POLITICS

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

It is not so much Pushkin, our national poet, as our relationship to Pushkin that has become our national characteristic. It is one thing that not one of us can get on without his poetry, and another our extremely developed worship of Pushkin. To the point of passion, infatuation, sectarianism. There are not only pushkinists and pushkinologists, but pushkinophiles and pushkinians-pushkinosophers as well [Est' pushkinisty, pushkinovedy, no est' i pushkinofily, pushkiniantsy-pushkinoliuby] . ... If you abuse Tolstoy, that's okay, it will pass, they might even listen; if you try it on Pushkin they might scratch your eyes out .... Don't touch our holy of holies! The measure of his holiness is that there is no possible way you can compromise or deflate it-it is natural, it is appropriate. 81

In a paper delivered at a jubilee Pushkin conference, Fomichev asserted that to penetrate the complex reasons why "Pushkin occupies such an exclusive place in contemporary [Soviet] culture" would require the combined efforts "of literary scholars, historians, art historians, sociologists, and psychologists." In outlining some of the main reasons for Pushkin's centrality he conceded the importance of the "single-minded propagandizing of Pushkin carried on for decades" and suggested its roots be traced back to the Pushkin Celebration of r88o.82 Significantly, the spiritual return to Pushkin has also been a return to Dostoevsky, and specifically to his Pushkin Speech. This has been accompanied by a critical reevaluation of the social critics (the founding fathers of socialist realism-Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobroliubov-and to a lesser extent Pisarev) and the rehabilitation of Grigor'ev, Druzhinin, Khodasevich, and other formerly maligned "idealistic" interpreters of Pushkin. Vladimir Seduro noted in 1975, in his lengthy study of Dostoevsky's rehabilitation in the Soviet Union, where his name had been almost anathema under Stalin, that Dostoevksy's "Christian-humanistic world-view is ... gradually winning a place for itself in Soviet culture as a great humanistic legacy."83 One of the main terms for Dostoevsky's new acceptance has been his gospel of Pushkin, seen not in Christian terms or as a political program but as a central moment in modern Russian selfconsciousness. 84 Dostoevsky's great achievement, cited again and again in current Soviet writings about Pushkin, was to proclaim him "the banner under which not only Russian literature but Russian social consciousness must develop."BS The Pushkin Celebration of r88o reappears in contemporary writings not as a major political event or as a holiday of the intelligentsia

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

CONCLUSION: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

17 5

but as a forum for Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech, which has again been put forward as the key moment in the evolution of modern Russian self-consciousness. We see in many of these writings a sincere desire to reclaim the living values of the past, yet at the same time a disturbing, at times even deliberate, ignoring of the need for historical accuracy and perspective in the pursuit of unshakable "spiritual buttresses." One such buttress, clearly, is the Pushkin Celebration of r88o. The return to Pushkin of the 198os, asserted Nepomniashchy in a book published in 1983, is "an echo multiplied a hundredfold of the Pushkin Celebration of r 88o, the acme of which was Dostoevsky's speech." And he concluded: I make bold to think that we now find ourselves on the threshold of a

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

new historical act of self-consciousness of Russian culture, an accounting before conscience, a defining of its further path. Or perhaps it is already happening, and we are taking part in it. 86

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Notes

Abbreviations Used in the Notes Academy of Sciences of the USSR Gosudarstvennyi I Gosudarstvennoe Khudozhestvennaia Literatura L Leningrad M Moscow Pd Petrograd Sov. Sovetskii I Sovetskaia SPg St. Petersburg TsGALI Central State Archive of Literature and Art !Moscow) TsGIA Central State Historical Archive !Leningrad) TsGIAgM Central State Historical Archive of the City of Moscow !Moscow) Uch. zap. Uchenye zapiski

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

AN SSSR Gos. Khud.lit.

Introduction: The Pushkin Celebration of r88o and the Crisis of Russian Culture I. I. S. Aksakov, "Pis'mo I. S. Aksakova o Moskovskikh prazdnikakh po povodu otkrytiia pamiatnika Pushkinu," Russkii arkhiv, bk. 2, no. 5 II89I), 90. 2. Konstantin Leont'ev, "Katkov i ego vragi na prazdnike Pushkina, 1," Varshavskii vestnik, no. I so !July I 5, I88o), p. 3· 3· See the spate of books on the Garrick celebration published during the Shakespeare Jubilee of I964, for example: Johanne M. Stockholm, Garrick's Folly !New York: Barnes and Noble, I964); Martha W. England, Garrick's fubilee IColumbus: Ohio State University Press, I964); and Christian Deelman, The Great Shakespeare fubilee !London: Michael Joseph, I964). That the jubilee tradition stems back to I769 is my own conclusion; Russians in the nineteenth century commonly cited more recent precedents !later Shakespeare celebrations and those honoring Moliere, Byron, Schiller, etc.). 4· Vladimir Mikhnevich, "Pushkinskii Prazdnik," Novosti, no. IS41June I3, I88o), p. 2. 5. From lecture 3, "The Hero as Poet," in On Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES

6. 7·

8.

9·

ro.

I I. 12. Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I3.

14·

15.

3-8

177

in History, vol. 5 of The Works of Thomas Carlyle, ed. H. D. Traill, Centenary Edition (London: Chapman and Hall, I898), p. I I4. See, for example, the negation of Russian society in "Temy dlia razgovora," unsigned, Nedelia, no. I6 (April I9, 188o), pp. 506-Io. Quoted by Henri Troyat in Pushkin, trans. Nancy Amphoux, p. 590. Troyat's novelized biography, first published in French in I946 (Pouchkine, Paris: Editions Albin Michel), included new documents from the Heeckeren family archives. These were republished by M. A. Tsiavlovsky as "Novye materialy dlia biografii Pushkina," in Zven'ia, vol. 9 (M: Kul'tprosvetizdat, I95 I), pp. 172-85. Pushkin himself played a large role in creating the new profession of financially independent writer and in helping to establish a "European" literary marketplace in Russia. See Sergei Gessen, Knigoizdatel' Aleksandr Pushkin (I930; facsimile edition with accompanying brochure by V. V. Kunin, M: Kniga, I987); Andre Meynieux, Pouchkine homme de lettres et la litterature professionnelle en Russie (Paris: Cahiers d'etudes litteraires, 1966), and its companion volume, La litterature et le metier d'ecrivain en Russie avant Pouchkine (Paris: Cahiers d'etudes litteraires, I966); and William Mills Todd, Ill, Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin. V. G. Belinsky, Sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh, 8:36. Translation with minor changes from Ralph E. Matlaw, ed., Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolyubov: Selected Criticism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, I976), p. 6. In the eighth of his famous articles on Pushkin, Belinsky makes much the same point and argues that Pushkin had almost single-handedly brought Russian society itself into existence (Sobranie sochinenii, 6: 37I-77, passim). Cited in B. B. Glinsky, "Razdvoivshaiasia redaktsiia 'Moskvitianina,"' Istoricheskii vestnik 68, no. 4 (April I897), 244-45. Original in French; my translation. On "Official Nationality," see: Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, r825-1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959); Sidney Monas, The Third Section: Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961); and Cynthia H. Whittaker, The Origins of Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1789-1855 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, I984). N. V. Gogol, "Neskol'ko slov o Pushkine," Sobranie sochinenii v semi tomakh 6:63. Gogol's article, widely anthologized in school textbooks, became and remains a basic text for the cult of Pushkin. K. la. Grot, ed., Perepiska la. K. Grot s P.A. Pletnevym (SPg, 1896), 3:320. See Martin Malia's essay "What Is the Intelligentsia?" in Richard Pipes, ed., The Russian Intelligentsia (New York: Columbia University Press, I96I), pp. I-I8, and Pipes's own article, "The Historical Evolution of the Russian Intelligentsia," pp. 47-62 in the same volume. Alien McConnell discusses the proliferation of views on defining the intelligentsia as a historical phenomenon in "The Origin of the Russian Intelligentsia," Slavic and East European JournalS, no. I (I964), I16. See also Philip Pomper, The Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, I970). Frederick C. Barghoorn, however, concludes that Pisarev's ideas "had so little operational character that they belong more to the realm of myth-making or fantasy than that of practical political or social thought" ("Nihilism, Utopia, and Realism in the Thought of Pisarev," Russian Thought and Politics, Harvard Slavic Studies 4 [The Hague: Mouton, 1957], p. 227). I have Benkendorf and Uvarov in mind here: there were unofficial Official Nationalists in the forties, particularly Stepan Shevyrev, who claimed Pushkin as their own.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

!78

NOTES TO PAGES

9-13

I6. See Ju. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspenskij, ''The Role of Dual Models in the Dynamics of Russian Culture (Up to the End of the Eighteenth Century)," in The Semiotics of Russian ~ulture, ed. Ann Shukman, Michigan Slavic Contributions I I (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, I984), pp. 3-35; also translated as "Binary Models in the Dynamics of Russian Culture," in The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History, ed. A. D. and A. S. Nakhimovsky (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I985), pp. 30-66. I7. The Russian philosopher N. 0. Lossky refers to much the same phenomenon when he speaks of "The Insufficiency of the Middle Region of [Russian] Culture" (title of chap. 9), in his Kharakter russkogo naroda (Frankfurt am Main: Possev, 1957)Lotman and Uspensky postulate a possible Manichean influence on old Russian culture as a source of Russian bipolarism. See "Spory o iazyke v nachale XIXv. kak fakt russkoi kul'tury," in Uch. zap. Tartuskogo gos. un-ta 358, Trudy po russkoi i slavianskoi filologii, 24 (I975), I73 n.9. I8. I. F. Vasilevsky, "Nabroski i Nedomolvki. Itogi moskovskikh 'krasnykh' dnei," Molva, no. r63 (June I5, r88o), p. r. I9. M. E. Kheifets, Vtoraia revoliutsionnaia situatsiia v Rossii (M: Moscow University, 1963), p. 320. In his letter to M. M. Stasiulevich of April2r, r88o (in Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvadtsati-vos'mi tomakh, I2, bk. 2: 236). The anonymous reviewer of A. Lukianov [L. A. Polonsky]'s story "The Thaw" ("Ottepel'") takes the story's name as fitting for the period in "Literaturnaia letopis'," Golos, no. r (January r, r88r). 21. Editorial, Russkie vedomosti, no. I45 (June 6, I88o), p. r. 22. N. K. Mikhailovsky, Sochineniia N. K. Mikhailovskogo, 4: cols. 912 and 919. 23. See the discussion of the term in Anthony G. Netting, "Russian Liberalism," pp. 20-24, and in Todd, Fiction and Society, pp. 15-18 and passim. On Russian liberalism, see below n. 32 and Chapter 3, nn. 3 and 10. 24. On the Slavophiles' notion of obshchestvo and free speech, see: A. G. Dement'ev, Ocherki po istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki r84o-r8sogg, pp. 337-404, esp. p. 363; Stephen Lukashevich, !van Aksakov (r823-1886}, pp. 55-63; Peter K. Christoff, K. S. Aksakov: A Study in Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 162-64 and 422-24; and Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy, trans. Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 250-56 and 27172. On Dostoevsky's and the Slavophiles' special notion of the church, see Chapter 5 below. 25. How far Dostoevsky equated the actual tsarist "state" and an ideal Russian "nation" is a central question for determining the political implications of his views; the question is discussed in Chapter 5. Alan P. Pollard groups him with the defenders of autocracy in his article "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech and the Politics of the Right under the Dictatorship of the Heart," Canadian-American Slavic Studies 17 (summer I983), 222-56. See also n. 30 below. 26. Torzhestvo otkrytiia pamiatnika A. S. Pushkinu v Moskve 6 iiunia r88og. s biografieiu A. S. Pushkina, actually published in I882; reprinted in I887 (Obshchestvo liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti pri Moskovskom universitete, p. 86). 27. Venok na pamiatnik Pushkinu (hereafter cited as Venok); on its authorship, see Obshchestvo liubitelei, p. 84 n. r. . 28. See also V. I. Mezhov's general bibliography Puschkiniana. There do exist two short Soviet works on the Pushkin Celebration of I88o: I. M. Suslov's Pamiatnik A. S. Pushkinu v Moskve, which deals primarily with the history of Opekushin's monument; and a brochure commemorating the celebration's centennial by the director of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (A. Z. Krein, Rukotvornyi pamiatnik). On Opekushin, see below, Chapter 2, nn. 33 and 34·

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

NOTES TO PAGES 14-17

179

29. One area in which the Soviets routinely claim complete credit is ending illiteracy in Russia, yet as Jeffrey Brooks has shown in his ground-breaking study When Russia Learned to Read, the process was well under way long before the revolution; and indeed in the 1920s the Soviet state wiped out a flourishing popular literary culture. Brooks brings to light a wealth of material on the growth of literacy in the period under consideration here. From the point of view of this book, however, Brooks does not-it seems to me-make a sufficiently clear distinction between the reigns of Alexander II and III, and the quantitative and qualitative changes in the literary scene before and after the period marked by the Pushkin Celebration. 30. See, for example, Edward C. Thaden, Conservative Nationalism in NineteenthCentury Russia, p. 38, on Turgenev and Katkov. Elsewhere in his book, Thaden misreads an article by Leont'ev and mistakenly asserts that K. P. Pobedonostsev spoke at the celebration (p. nr). The one notable exception is Alan P. Pollard's article ("Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech") cited above inn. 2 5. As the title suggests, Pollard sees the period and the celebration mainly in terms of the assertion of an "embryonic Russian right," which he describes as "a post-Emancipation phenomenon that took shape at the end of the r87os in reaction to the Russo-Turkish War and the revolutionary movement" (p. 238). The literary and ideological roots of the movement, however, clearly go back much further. See, for example, Wayne Dowler, "The 'Young Editors' of Moskvityanin and the Origins of Intelligentsia Conservatism in Russia," Slavonic and East European Review 55, no. 3 (July 1977), 310-27. Pollard presents a helpful survey of the preparations that led up to the Pushkin Celebration and reviews Dostoevsky's participation and the Turgenev-Dostoevsky rivalry in detail. His article came to my attention only late in the preparation of this book but was helpful in clarifying my political analysis of Dostoevsky's views in Chapter 5, where I discuss some of his conclusions. 3 r. Marc Raeff, "Some Reflections on Russian Liberalism," 2 r 8 and 226. 32. See esp.: Netting's study cited inn. 23; Paul A. Russo, "Colas, r8y8-r883"; and Derek Offord, Portraits of Early Russian Liberals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, rg8s). Notably, the "liberal" Colas did not use the term to describe itself. See Russo's discussion of the problem of defining the term, pp. 395-400. 33· Editorial, "Eshche neskol'ko slov o pushkinskom prazdnike," Russkii kur'er, no. I76 (July r, r88o), p. r. 34· Editorial, Strana, no. 27 (Apri13, r88o), p. 2. An anonymous feuilletonist writing in Colos noted that for this latter group, "neither freedom of conscience, nor an independent church, nor a nonpartisan law court, nor the freedom to move about, nor equality of taxation, nor even the opportunity to defend one's own rights are compatible with absolute monarchy. They say: 'You can expect nothing from the existing form of government in Russia; let all your hopes cease, even the most legitimate ones"' ("Voskresnye nabroski," no. 144 [May 25, r88o], p. 2). Hence the opposition changes from that between the two sides of a bipolar, zero-sum antithesis to a choice between bipolar and tripartite (pluralistic) systems. The tripartite scheme represents a fundamentally new kind of dialogue, which allows for "other" opinions and should in theory transcend such categorization. In practice, however, the highly valorizing bipolar mentality-which translates any disagreement into a clash between irreconcilable enemies-tends to reduce all discourse to its own narrow terms. 35· Editorial, "Znamenie vremeni," Nedelia, no. 24 (June 15, r88o), p. 746. 36. "Politicheskoe znachenie Pushkinskogo prazdnika," Colas, no. 162 (June 13, r88o), p. r. 37· See Jeffrey Brooks, "Readers and Reading at the End of the Tsarist Era," pp. 97rso, and his When Russia Learned to Read.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I80

NOTES TO PAGES 17-21

38. Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read, p. 317. See also his article "Russian Nationalism and Russian Literature." 39· "Voskresnye nabroski," Colas, no. 164 (June 15, 188o), p. r. 40. Vladimir Mikhnevich, "Pushkinskii prazdnik," Novosti, no. 154 (June 13, 188o), p. I. I.

The Debate Is Formulated

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

r. Denis Davydov, Sochineniia Denisa Vasil'evicha Davydova, 4th ed. vol. 3 (M,

186o), p. 157 (letter of February 3, 1837, to N. M. Iazykov). 2. Quoted in P. E. Shchegolev, Duel' i smert' Pushkina, p. 221. 3· Ibid., pp. 215-16. Zhukovsky's efforts on behalf of Karamzin are detailed in M. P. Pogodin, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, materialy dlia biografii, 2 vols. (M, 1866), 2: 494-504. Zhukovsky himself had described Karamzin as "an angel" (p. 504). Karamzin's son Andrei, who learned the news of Pushkin's death while abroad, wrote a tearful letter home on February 12 asking, "Aren't they thinking of a monument?" (N. V. Izmailova, ed., Pushkin v pis'makh Karamzinykh I 836I837 godov [M·L: AN SSSR, 1960], p. 399 n.). 4· The letters, and Benkendorf's and Nicholas's reactions to them, are presented in A. S. Poliakov, 0 smerti Pushkina, pp. 36-43. A Prussian diplomat in Petersburg estimated that from the time of Pushkin's death until his body was taken to the church, fifty thousand people "of every status" had come to pay their last respects (pp. 33-34). Poliakov comments (on p. 32) that "for Nicholaevan times such an outpouring of public grief was a surprising event, and from the point of view of a protector of the state order and public tranquility like the chief of police [Benken· dorf], literally dangerous. The Third Section couldn't bear anything that exceeded the bounds of what was officially permitted, or anything that took place without its knowledge, even if it be the open adoration of a talent or the intimate con· fession of a passionate heart concerned with society's good (i.e., the anonymous letters]." 5· A. Kh. Benkendorf, "Otchet deistviia korpusa zhendarmov," in ibid., p. 46. 6. Mikhail Iashin, "Khronika predduel'nykh dnei," Zvezda, no. 9 (1963), 166-87. Iashin suggests that the tsar transferred the funeral to the Koniushennaia church because it was a more convenient place to quell street disorders (p. 187), and presents documents showing that as part of the surprise exercises there were to be troops stationed near the church. 7· Zhukovsky, after going through Pushkin's letters, wrote a very bitter (and probably undelivered) letter to Benkendorf, which belies much of the famous letter he had written to Pushkin's father describing the tsar's magnanimity toward the poet. Zhukovsky protested against the secret police's "oppression" of Pushkin during his life and also took umbrage at the measures taken after his death. He advised the police "not to admit before all of society that the government fears a plot, not to insult people who do not deserve any suspicion with their stupid charges, in a word, not to produce by itself with its improper measures that very agitation it wanted to avert" (Shchegolev, Duel' i smert', p. 257). 8. Poliakov, 0 smerti Pushkina, p. 42. 9· Although Pushkin consistently fought for his own independence as a man of letters, attempts to translate his position into later political terms of reference most often suffer from painful anachronism. The question of Pushkin's political beliefs is extremely complicated, not only because of the many uses to which he has been put (as monarchist, Decembrist, defender/vilifier of Orthodoxy, aristocrat, Communist, etc.), but because the poet was a highly sophisticated thinker who lived in a particularly complex period. Sam Driver discusses the current

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES 21-22

IO.

I 1.

I2.

13.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

14.

I5.

I8I

status of the problem in his article "Puskin and Politics: The Later Works," Slavic and East European Journal 25, no. 3 (I98I), I-23, and notes the subtle political implications of Pushkin's dandyism in "The Dandy in Puskin," Slavic and East European Journal29, no. 3 (1985), 243-57. "Literaturnoe prilozhenie k Russkomu invalidu," Russkii invalid, no. 5 (I837). For many years Kraevsky was assumed to be the author of the notice; P. B. Zaborov postulated that Vladimir Odoevsky actually wrote it ("Neizdannye stat'i V. F. Odoevskogo o Pushkin," in Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. I [M-L: AN SSSR, I956], p. 320), and his thesis was borne out by the publication of the Karamzin family letters in I96o. See Pushkin v pis'makh Karamzinykh, pp. I36 and 396 n. On the campaign against Pushkin by censorship, see also the censor A. V. Nikitenko's Dnevnik, vol. I ([M]: Khud. Lit., I9SS), pp. I9S-97There is a tremendous literature concerning unofficial reactions to Pushkin's death, both diaries and letters, and poems (the most famous in the latter category being Lermontov's "Na smert' poeta," for which he was exiled to the Caucasus). See, for example, "Pushkin v neizdannoi perepiske sovremennikov (I 8 Is- I 8 37)," in Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 58 (M: AN SSSR, I952), pp. 3-I54; and R. V. Iezuitova, "Evoliutsiia obraza Pushkina v russkoi poezii XIX veka," in Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. s (L: Nauka, I967), pp. II3-39, and the relevant Pushkin bibliographies. Russkaia starina 28, no. 7 (I88o), 536-37. See also the journal's comments on p. 503, listing its recent publications concerning Pushkin and connecting them to the Pushkin Celebration. Among the other major documents brought to bear on Pushkin's position were his correspondence with Benkendorf, published in Russkaia starina between I874 and I88o (the same letters that had so enraged Zhukovsky), and documents from Viazemsky's "Ostaf'evskii arkhiv," which appeared as a book in r 88o and gained wide attention. See V. I. Mezhov's Puschkiniana. As he is characterized in "Vnutrenee obozrenie," Russkaia mysl', bk. s (May I88o), 26. See, for example, Pushkin's unsent letter of October I9, I836, toP. la. Chaadaev concerning his "Philosophical Letters." Although Pushkin challenged Chaadaev's assessment of Russia's "historical nullity," he agreed "that this absence of public opinion, this indifference for everything that represents duty, justice and truth, this cynical contempt for thought and human dignity, is something truly distressing" (A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh, ro: 46 5; original in French). Viazemsky considered the popular outcry over Pushkin's death "the most eloquent refutation" of Chaadaev's arguments (Shchegolev, Duel' i smert' p. 26 s). A few years later Custine cited Nicholas's behavior toward the dead Pushkin and his banishing of Lermontov for his poem "Na smert' poeta" to demonstrate the absence of the "possibility of a Russian civilization" (as his French informantwho got many of his facts wrong-put it). See Custine's Eternal Russia, trans. P. P. Kohler (Miami: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, I976), pp. IIO- I I. V. la. Stoiunin, Istoricheskie sochineniia, 2: 342-43 (originally published in Istoricheskii vestnik, I88o, no. 6, 217-54; no. 7, 435-58; no. 8, 6I s-66; no. IO, 2548I; and no. !2, 679-748). On Stoiunin, see la. A. Rotkevich, Ocherki po istorii prepodavaniia literatury v russkoi shkole, lzvestiia APN RSFSR, no. so (M, I 9 53), pp. 309-40. The history of Pushkin biographies is surveyed by la. L. Levkovich in Pushkin: Itogi i problemy izucheniia, pp. 249-302. Levkovich calls Stoiunin's work "a significant contribution to the history of Pushkin biographies" (p. 272).

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

182

NOTES TO PAGES 22-25

I6. See N. N. Strakhov, "Po povodu otritsaniia avtoritetov. Neskol'ko zapozdalykh slov o Pushkine," Otechestvennye zapiski, bk. I, (January 1866,, II?-27. I?. See "Mimokhodom," Molva, no. 155 (June 6, 1880,, p. I; and editorial, Golos, no. I62 (June 13, 188o,, p. r. 18. P. V. Annenkov, Vospominaniia i kriticheskie ocherki, 3: 266-67. On Annenkov's "conservative liberal" view of Pushkin, see also Chapter 4, n. 40 below. I9. "Chestvovanie pamiatnika Pushkina v Peterburge," Molva, no. I 57 (June 8, I88o,, p. 2. 20. On the affairs of the trusteeship, see Letopisi Gas. literatmnogo muzeia, bk. 5, Arkhiv opeki Pushkina (M, I939'; Shchegolev, Duel' i smert', pt. 3; and M. A. Tsiavlovsky, "Novye materialy dlia biografii Pushkina," Zven'ia, vol. 9 (M: Kul'tprosvetizdat, I95I,, pp. I80-83. 21. Data on the results of the subscription in the provinces of Chemigov and Kazan' may be found in V. Modzalevsky, "Podpiska na sochineniia Pushkina v Chernigovskoi gubemii v I837 godu," Pushkin i ego sovremenniki, no. 17-I8 (SPg: Tipografiia imperatorskii Akademii nauk, I9I3,, pp. 270-76, and N. Petrovskii, "K istorii rasprostraneniiu sochineniia Pushkina," Pushkin i ego sovremenniki, no. 3I-32 (1927; rpt. The Hague: Mouton, 1970,, pp. 149-50. 22. See M. V. Muratov, Knizhnoe delo v Rossii v XIX i XX vekakh (M-L: Sotsekgiz, 1931,, p. 76. Muratov mistakenly states that the press run was five thousand. 23. V. G. Belinsky, Sobranie sochinenii, 6: 492 (from the eleventh article,. Again, many commentators in r88o felt that little had changed on the literary scene: for all the excitement over Pushkin, they felt it strange that there was still no "proper"-or even readily available-edition of Pushkin. In fact, the poet's works had become a bibliographical rarity. Viktor Ostrogorsky termed it "a national disgrace" that "it has now been about a year that it is impossible to buy Pushkin at any price in Petersburg or Moscow" ("V vidu ozhidaemogo otkrytiia pamiatnika Pushkinu," Novae vremia, no. 1266 [September 7, 1879], p. 3). The publisher Isaakov held the exclusive right to publish the poet, and his edition, whose six volumes appeared sporadically during 188o, was only the fourth edition of Pushkin's "complete" works in the forty-three years after the poet's death. 24. It was this version that was to be carved onto the Pushkin monument. P. I. Bartenev revealed the original version in his speech on June 8, I88o (Russkii arkhiv, bk. 2 [188o], 467-87L and published it the following year ("0 stikhotvorenii Pushkina 'Pamiatnik,'" Russkii arkhiv, bk. I [I881], 233-37,. The words on the pedestal of the monument were not changed until I937, however. 25. My translation. The original is in elegant rhymed alexandrines, with the last line of each stanza in tetrameter. 26. See M. P. Alekseev's monograph Stikhotvorenie Pushkina "la pamiatnik sebe vozdvig ... ," which analyzes the poem in the context of previous and subsequent versions of the Horatian prototype. 27. Ibid., pp. 3-4. In a recent commentary on the poem and its reception by readers, Andrei Bitov discusses the popular view of the poem as "the general, the field marshal, the commanding officer of all Pushkin's poetry" (Stat'i iz romana, p. 260,. 28. My analysis of the poem is indebted toP. N. Sakulin's excellent article "Parniatnik nerukotvornyi," in Pushkin: Sbornik pervyi, ed. N. K. Piksanov (M: Gosizdat, 1924,, pp. 3 I-76, a defense ofthe "traditional" reading ofthe poem called forth by M. 0. Gershenzon's assertion, in his Mudrost' Pushkina (M, 1919,, that the poem was meant to be ironic. 29. See Waiter Ong's discussion of Horace's "Exegi monumenturn" from the point of view of the oral/literate dichotomy in Interfaces of the Word (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1977,, pp. 237-38, and B. S. Meilakh's study "Pushkin v

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES 26-29

30. 31.

32.

33·

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

34·

35· 36.

37. 38.

183

vospriiatii i soznanii dorevoliutsionnogo krest'ianstva," in B. S. Meilakh et al., eds., Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. 5 (L: Nauka, 1967), esp. pp. Sr, 83, andror. The high-style, biblical vocabulary of Pushkin's poem enhanced Pushkin's iconic image. The epithet "nerukotvornyi" ("not made by hands"), notably, is traditionally applied to many Russian icons, thereby asserting their divine, Godgiven essence. V. G. Belinsky, Sobranie sochinenii, 6: 250. Note the "nihilist" logic here. "The spirit of analysis, the indomitable striving for knowledge, passionate thought full of hate and love have now become the lifeblood of any true poetry," wrote Belinsky. "In this, time has delimited Pushkin's poetry, and deprived it of that topical interest which can supply a satisfactory answer to the disturbing and painful questions of the present day" (from the fifith article on Pushkin, ibid., p. 287). The Pushkin debate of the sixties, so central to the literary life of the period, merits a separate study. V. I. Mezhov's very useful bibliography of nineteenthcentury works on Pushkin (Puschkiniana, 1886) is still not complete in covering this period. There is a tremendous amount of secondary material on the debate but no balanced presentation of what the various components of the debate were or how they interrelate. Soviet studies tend to offer a one-sided perspective, overemphasizing the radicals' position, although more and more "forgotten" critics are being reprinted and rehabilitated. General overviews may be found in: S. S. Trubachev, Pushkin v russkoi kritike r82o-r88o; D. D. Blagoi, "Kritika o Pushkine," a useful if vulgar-Marxist survey, in Putevoditel' po Pushkinu, and in Pushkin: Itogi i problemy, pp. 50-77. See also Victor Terras, "Some Observations on Pushkin's Image in Russian Literature," Russian Literature [North Holland] 14 (1983), 299-316. Alexander Druzhinin, "A. S. Pushkin i poslednee izdanie ego sochinenii," Sobranie sochinenii A. V. Druzhinina, vol. 7 (SPg, 1895), p. 32. The best study of Druzhinin's criticism is HelenS. Schulak's "Aleksandr Druzinin and His Place in Russian Criticism" (diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1967); see esp. pp. 32 and 152-58. "Gymale" (Iurii Volkov), "Literaturnye vpechatleniia," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 61 (March r6, 1861), p. 332. Dudyshkin's article, "Pushkin-narodnyi poet," appeared in Otechestvennye zapiski 129, no. 4 (r86o), sec. 3, 57-74. Elsewhere, Volkov suggested that the movement be called del'nyi (practical) or nauchaiushchyi (instructive) rather than "nihilist." See his "Literaturnye vpechatleniia," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 96 (May 3, 1861), p. 549· Feuilleton by "K. V.," Russkii invalid, no. 95 (May 3, 1861), p. 387. On Pisarev, see esp. Arrnand Coquart, Dmitri Pisarev (184o-r868) et l'ideologie du nihilisme russe; A. A. Plotkin, Pisarev i literaturno-obshchestvennoe dvizhenie shestidesiatykh godov (M-L: AN SSSR, 1945); L. Plotkin, D. I. Pisarev: Zhizn' i deiatel'nost' (M-L: Khud. Lit., 1962); J. Forsyth, "Pisarev, Belinsky and Yevgeniy Onegin," Slavonic and East European Review 48 (1970), 163-80; and S. S. Konkin, "Pushkin v kritike Pisareva," Russkaia literatura, no. 4 (1972), 5074· Blagoi, "Kritika o Pushkine," p. 204. Later Russian social critics, down to the present day, have been extremely embarrassed by Pisarev's views on Pushkin and have at times tried to ignore them or explain them away. A. N. Pypin, in his Istoriia russkoi literatury, 2d ed., vol. 4 (1903; rpt. The Hague: Mouton, 1968), pp. 416-17, for example, asserted without proof that "they say" Pisarev retracted his "unique type of phillipic" against Pushkin in his later years (he died in 1868). The most recent Soviet collection of

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

184

3940.

41.

42. 4344-

4546. 4748. 49-

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

50-

51.

p.

NOTES TO PAGES

29-34

his criticism simply leaves out his article on Pushkin ("Pushkin i Belinsky")probably his most famous work-altogether. See D. I. Pisarev: Literaturnaia kritika v trekh tomakh, ed. Iu. S. Sorokin (L: Khud. Lit., I98I). D. S. Pisarev, Sochineniia v chetyrekh tomakh, I: 97-98, and 3: 109. Victor Askochensky, Domashniaia beseda, no. 28 (July 9, I86o), pp. 349-55. Askochensky refers to Pushkin as "an idol to whom many people, and many more people, bow down, but [he's an idol) not of pure gold but of clay" (p. 353). As Pisarev was to do, Askochensky combined his attack on Pushkin with a rejection of Belinsky. Sochineniia Apollona Grigor'eva, ed. N. N. Strakhov (SPg, I876), pp. 624 and 238. On Grigor'ev, see esp. Robert T. Whittaker, Jr., "Apollon Aleksandrovic Grigor'ev and the Evolution of 'Organic Criticism'" (diss., Indiana University, I970), and the works cited below in Chapter 5, n. 28. Coquart, Dmitri Pisarev, p. 263. The two quotes are from "Literaturnoe obozrenie i zametki," anonymous [M. N. Katkov?], Russkii vestnik, no. 6 (June r86I), sec. 2, I 57; and N. Akhsharumov, writing in Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 7 (July I857), Ios-6. Pisarev's friend A. M. Skabichevsky also tried to explain nihilist extremism as a result of its uncultured audience. Skabichevsky, who had flirted with radicalism and who later became a popularizer of Pushkin, maintained that Pisarev had stood "completely shoulder to shoulder" with the majority of the reading public, which, he wrote (in I869), "is still passing through that period of development reflected in Pisarev's works." Like that public, Pisarev was "underdeveloped to an extreme" ("Dmitrii Ivanovich Pisarev )Ego kriticheskaia deiatel'nost' v sviazi s kharakterom ego umstvennogo razvitiia. Stat'ia pervaia]," Otechestvennye zapiski, no. I [January r869], sec. 2, 43). Svetoch, no. 8 (I86I), sec. 3, 4-5. "Otvet S. Peterburgskim Vedomostiam ... ," Severnaia pchela, no. 63 (March 2, r86r), p. 250. Mikhail Longinov, "Chto znachit 'dogovorit'sia?'" Sovremennaia letopis', no. 32 (r865), p. 10. Blaming the lack of free speech for nihilism's success did not, however, stop Longinov himself from acting as a very conservative head censor from 1871 until his death in r875. Unsigned article, "Krestovyi pokhod nashykh peredovykh zhurnalov na Pushkina," Svetoch, no. 8 (r86o), sec. 3, 7Nadezhda Sokhanskaia, "Stepnoi tsvetok na mogilu Pushkina," Russkaia beseda, bk. I?, no. 5 (May 1859), 55-57. Sokhanskaia had submitted the article two years earlier to an unnamed "Petersburg journal," but it had not been accepted. In an added introduction to the article here, she angrily challenged those who had rejected it. For example, Catherine II scheduled the unveiling of E. M. Falcon et's famous statue to Peter the Great (the "Bronze Horseman") in 1782 to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of her reign and made it "a large-scale political event." Huge crowds turned out to watch the ceremonies, which included a military flotilla on the Neva, rifle and artillery salutes, and a parade. See Z. V. Zaretskaia, Fal'kone (L-M: Sov. Khudozhnik, [r96s]), pp. 34-35. The opening of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square in r8r8 was also staged as a demonstrative political act. For the history of national monuments, see Nicholas Pevsner, A History of Building Types (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I977), chap. 1. One of the most popular was the Peter the Great bicentennial of 1872. See V. I. Mezhov, ed., Iubilei Petra Velikogo.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

NOTES TO PAGES

34-37

185

53· This was before the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature began to organize such celebrations in the r8sos (on which, see Chapter 2). See, for example, Panaev's recollections about the jubilee for Ivan Krylov on February 2, 1838. Benkendorf, Uvarov, and Nicholas I all had their say in its planning. I. I. Panaev, Literaturnye vospominaniia ([M:] Khud. Lit., 1950), pp. 85-87, and I. Iampolsky's note on pp. 375-76, which includes bibliographical references. 54· For example, according to Sovremennaia letopis', no. I6 (May I86s), the monument to Lomonosov in Arkhangel'sk, erected not earlier than I 8 38, was supported by contributions of s,ooo rubles from Nicholas I, r,ooo rubles from the Academy of Sciences, 2,ooo from Count Vorontsov, I,ooo from Lomonosov's relative S. Raevskaia, and so on. The local bishop Neofit had initiated the subscription for the monument and collected 2,ooo rubles from local donors. The monument to Karamzin was proposed by the local Simbirsk gentry and was actively supported by the tsar. See N. B. Barsukov, Zhizn' i trudy M. P. Pogodina, 4: ISI-52 and 8: 180-201. SS· Barsukov, Zhizn', 8: 181. 56. See V. I. Mezhov's rare Iubilei Lomonosova, Karamzina i Krylova (roo copies printed; available in the Lenin Library); and S. Ponomarev, "Materialy dlia bibliografii literatury o Lomonosove," in Sbornik otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti Akademii Nauk, 8, no. 2 (SPg, 1872). 57· Editorial, Colas, no. 6 (January 8, r86y). The Karamzin jubilee was also commemorated in Simbirsk, Kiev, Nizhnii Novgorod, and a few other cities and at universities and a few gymnasiums. sS. Upon graduating from the Lycee in 1817 Pushkin was assigned to work at the foreign ministry, and all through his southern exile he was still nominally in the ministry's employ and received a salary. In I 8 31 Pushkin returned to the ministry on Nicholas l's invitation to use its archives to write his history of Peter the Great. 59· TsGALI, f. 384, op. I, d. I02. 6o. A few years later, in 1864, Kovalevsky, now as president of the Lit Fund, petitioned the minister of the imperial court for permission to celebrate the Shakespeare tricentennial in the imperial Bolshoi Theater, but Alexander li found it "unbefitting" "to institute a jubilee celebration in the memory of the birth of a foreigner, even though a great poet, with the direct participation, and as if by instigation, of the government" (M. P. Alekseev, ed., Shekspir i russkaia kul'tura [M-L: Nauka, 196sL p. 411). 61. B. S. Meilakh, Pushkin i ego epokha, p. 128. 62. By an irony of fate Gorchakov, who lived until 1883, was the last surviving member of the "firstlings (perventsy]" of the Lycee, the answer to the question put by Pushkinin 1825 in the poem "19 oktiabria": "Komuiz nas pod starost' den' Litseia I Torzhestvovat' pridetsia odnomu 1 (Who among us, approaching old age, I Will be obliged to celebrate Lycee Day alone?]." 63. They never attended the school, however, because of the tense international situation and the expected coming war with Napoleon (B. Tomashevsky, Pushkin: Kniga pervaia [r8r3-I824], p. 11). Besides this, the most important works on the Lycee are: la. K. Grot, Pushkin; I. Seleznev, Istoricheskii ocherk imperatorskogo byvshego tsarskosel'skogo nyne aleksandrovskogo litseia; D. Kobeko, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei; K. la. Grot, Pushkinskii litsei (r8r I-IBI?) (SPg, I9II); and N. Gastfreind, Tovarishchi Pushkina po imperatorskomu tsarskosel'skomu litseiu . .. , 3 vols. (SPg, 1912-1913). 64. The first quote is taken from the Pamiatnaia knizhka imperatorskogo aleksandrovskogo litseia, na r 886 god (SPg, r886), p. xv, and the second from Kobeko, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei, p. 101. 65. Meilakh, with some exaggeration, terms the "purged" Lycee "a real prison"

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

186

66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

73·

NOTES TO PAGES

38-40

(Pushkin i ego epokha, p. I 53). Nicholas declared that "pupils like those graduated in Engelhardt's taste will no longer be let out" (Kobeko, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei, p. 272). As for Engelhardt himself, his dismissal was a personal tragedy, because, as he wrote, "the Lycee was the object of my life" (ibid., p. I 55). He kept ties with many of his former students, including the exiled Pushchin and Kiukhel'beker. It was Engelhardt who arranged for and supported the early Lycee reunions, which took place from I8I8 to I82I at Tsarskoe Selo, and after his dismissal, at his home in Petersburg (see la. K. Grot, Pushkin, pp. 8I-86). See I. Seleznev, ed., IV Otdelenie sobstvennoi ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva kantseliarii. On the prince of Oldenburg, see F. Brokgaus and I. Efron, eds., Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' (SPg, I899), 2I: 9I4-I6; A. Papkov, Zhizn' i trudy printsa Petra Georgievicha Ol'denburgskogo; Seleznev, IV Otdelenie, passim; and Pamiatnaia knizhka, pp. so-s6. Seleznev, IV Otdelenie, p. 444· Letter from the prince of Oldenburg to the Ministry of Finance, March I 3, I86I, TsGIA, f. 565, op. 4, d. 14242, LI r. See, for example, the editorial of Colas, no. 162 (June I3, r88o), p. r, and la. K. Grot's speech quoted in Venok, p. 204. In an often tendentious pamphlet on the Pushkin Celebration, A. z. Krein, trying to show the tsarist state's continuing enmity toward Pushkin, asserts that it "didn't care to allot even a kopeck" for it (Rukotvornyi pamiatnik, p. 7), but there never was any question of the government funding the monument-on the contrary, that it was an "exclusively private" and public project was a source of pride for its organizers, a proof that Russian society was capable of independent action. TsGALI, f. 384, d. I03 (copy of an original from the Gor'kovskii Kraevoi Arkhiv, op. 131). TsGIA, f. 565, op. 4, d. 14242, delo no. ' 9/ . " , "0 perevode deneg, kotorye budut pozhertvovannye, po podpiske, na sooruzhenie pamiatnika poetu A. Pushkinu," November 20, r86o-June 3, 1870. According to the Ministry of Finance records cited above, the provinces' monthly totals were: Deposit date

Amount (in rubles)

Number of provinces

Archival sheet

July 7, r86r September 9, r86r November II, r86r February 7, I862 March 30, I862 July 2I, I862 October 30, I862 January 25, I863 June I5, I863 August I3, I863 October Io, I863 February ro, I864 October 29, I864 March I9, I865

2,593·68 3,229·34 2,422.32! I,442.I3! 514·40 890.2I 4Ir.8oi 246.I4 I 82. I I 7 5·I I I,073·95 t 29·95 I82.I5 2I8.I9

26 22 24 24 2I 20 II IO IO

1.?4 l.rr6 l.I62 L2o5 1.238-39 1.279-80 1.303-4 !.325-26 1.342-43 1.347-48 1.359-60 1.369-70 1.393 L4II

3

4 I 6

Strangely, the province of Moscow does not figure in this collection; perhaps that explains its prominent place in the renewed subscription of the seventies. 74· "Otvet na vopros 2-i, pomeshchennyi v fel'etone 'Peterburgskogo Listka' No. ros," feuilleton signed " ... r.r.r. .. ," Peterburgskii listok, no. I I4 (August 6, r866), p. 2.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES

41-46

187

7 5. "Neskol'ko slov o pamiatnike Pushkinu," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. I 22 !May 5, I871), p. 1. 76. Documents concerning this curious episode may be found in the Academy of Arts fund at TsGIA, f. 789, op. 3, ed. khr. I 56, "0 pamiatnike poetu Pushkinu" II86I). 77- Seleznev, IV Otdelenie, pp. 444-45. The money came from here because the prince treated the matter as an unfulfilled commission ordered for the Lycee.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

2.

Those Who Kept the Light Burning

1. "0 vozobnovlenii podpiski na pamiatnik Pushkinu," S. Peterbmgskie vedomosti, no. 104IApril 17, I871), p. 4· 2. TsGALI, f. I23, op. I, d. 10, quoted from a "Knizhka dlia sbora pozhertvovanii na sooruzhenie pamiatnika Pushkinu. S. Peterburg. I871." 3· See the works cited above in Chapter I, n. 63, and K. K. Grot's Prazdnovanie litseiskikh godovshchin. On the "Lycee cult," see B. S. Meilakh, Pushkin i ego epokha, chaps. I-4, esp. pp. I4-I 5, and Pushkin: Itogi iproblemy, pp. I 58-67 and index, references to the Grots. 4· A. D. Komovsky recalled that members of his sixth graduating class had met diligently for several years after finishing the Lycee to mark the "holy day" of the school's founding. Then in I859, after a lapse of many years, K. K. Grot and seventh-class graduate D. Mertvyi organized a reunion of the combined sixth and seventh classes. When it was over, this small group joined with the fifth class, which had happened to be celebrating its reunion in the same restaurant; the three classes thereafter united. See D. Kobeko, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei, pp. 473-75; parts of Komovsky's diary originally appeared in Kolos'ia, no. 4 lr884), 54-55· s. The protocols of the reunions, from which I quote here and below, were kept mostly by the group's "permanent secretary" K. K. Grot. They are preserved in TsGALI, f. I23, op. I, ed. khr. 7, and begin in I86s. 6. See the bibliography of his works inK. la. Grot, la. K. Grot, pp. I99-235. Grot also wrote sentimental poems about the Lycee !see pp. I3S-37 and I39). 7- "Avtograf Pushkina," lzvestiia vtorogo otdeleniia imp. Ak. Nauk 6, no. I ISPg, r857), cols. 326-36. 8. The seventh and most famous stanza. My translation. 9. Meilakh IPushkin i ego epokha) examines the "Lycee theme" in Pushkin's works on pp. I 57-68. See also B. Tomashevsky, Pushkin: Kniga pervaia, chap. r. ro. On the publishing history of the poem see A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, Jubilee Edition, 2, bk. 2: n68-69. I I. The distinction Annensky is drawing is between the "Tsarskosel'skii Litsei" and the "Aleksandrovskii Litsei" of St. Petersburg. See Komovsky's diary, quoted in Kobeko, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei, p. 474I2. I do not mean to overemphasize the reunions' political aspect, although, as the speeches already cited show, it was clearly present. Meilakh stresses that Iakov Grot "especially concerned himself [with ensuring that] the 'Lycee cult' ... lost any political coloration, and he viewed it as an idyllically sentimental congeniality of people whose only connection was in that they had been educated under one roof" IPushkin i ego epokha, p. I4). 13. SeeS. Makashin, Saltykov-Shchedrin, I: chap. 2. 14. Makashin states that Saltykov attended the reunions both to maintain certain necessary ties with his classmates and to supply himself with material for satirizing Petersburg bureaucrats I!) !ibid., p. I43). IS. TsGALI, f. I23, op. I, ed. khr. 7- See also K. la. Grot, la. K. Grot, p. no. I 6. I. Seleznev, Istoricheskii ocherk imperatorskogo byvshego Tsarskosel' skogo nyne Aleksandrovskogo litseia, p. 445-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

!88

NOTES TO PAGES

46-49

I?. Venok, pp. I98-99. I 8. Seleznev, Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 446-4 7. Naturally, whenever the question of where to put the monument arose, appropriate verses from Pushkin's works praising the desired city were adduced. I9. The official correspondence concerning the monument's placement is preserved in the Central State Historical Archive of the City of Moscow (TsGIAgM), f. I79, op. 2I, d. 298, "Delo ob otrezke na Tverskom bul'vare ploshchadki dlia postanovki pamiatnika A. S. Pushkinu." 20. P. I. Miller, letter to the editor, Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 264 (December 2, I87I), p. 4· 21. Editorial, Russkii kur'er, no. I 52 (June 6, I88o), p. r. 22. M. de Pule argues against Moscow in his article cited above in Chapter I, n. 75, as does F. Shatov of Simfiropol' in Russkaia starina, 4(I8?I), I73-76. In I88o the Moscow-Petersburg rivalry surfaced again, most interestingly in newspaper humor sections. One versifier, decrying Petersburg's apathy over the upcoming Pushkin Celebration, complained: "Poor Pushkin is forgot... I All Rus' cries out with scorn: I 'Just so-in Moscow was he born I And in Petersburg was shot!'" ("Chem khata bogata," Molva, no. I40 [May 22, I88o], p. I). Dmitrii Minaev defended Petersburg's honor with his widely reprinted poem "S nevskogo berega" ("From the shore of the Neva") whose stanzas end with the refrain: "No, we won't give up the poet: I He's ours no less than Moscow's!" (Venok, pp. 306-8). 23. For example, the secretary of the OLRS, which had helped host the famous Slav Congress in Moscow in I867, wrote in r87I that "the degree of participation revealed by the Slavs in the erecting of the monument to Pushkin will have serious significance in the eyes of Russian society; the degree of their participation will indicate whether the idea of Slav unity is succeeding" (P. K. Shchebal'sky, "Po povodu pamiatnika Pushkinu," Russkii vestnik 94, no. 4 [April I871], 714). On the society's participation in the Slav Congress, see its Besedy v obshchestve liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti, no. 2 (M, r868). 24. Russkii vestnik I05, no. 5 (May I873), 422. 2 5. An ironic allusion to the paper's extremely ponderous style and ostentatious loyalty to the crown. Its announcement of the subscription (no. 7 3 [April8, I 871], p. 2), for example, proclaimed that "with joyous feeling we inform our readers of this new proof of the sympathy of the Most August Head of the Russian people for all those in any walk of life with whom Russia's honor and glory is tied. Great artists, scholars, and thinkers glorify their fatherland just as much as great ministers and military leaders serve it, and Pushkin is not only the most popular of Russian poets, but one of the most popular Russians in general; already several generations have inhaled his poetry together with the air; his cult of beauty and truth have left an indelible mark on our people's upbringing. The Russian public has at hand a chance to prove its gratitude to him who afforded his compatriots so much moral profit." 26. Grazhdanin, no. I? (April23, 1873), unsigned. For its attribution to Strakhov, see F. M. Dostoevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsah tomakh, 2T r82 n. 26. 27. Nikolai Strakhov, "Zametki o Pushkine," in Skladchina: Literatumyi sbornik (SPg, 1874), p. 56r. Strakhov argued that Pushkin's significance was simply so great that it still defied formulation. Cf. his angry response of r 866 to Pisarev, "Po povodu otritsaniia avtoritetov. Neskol'ko zapozdalykh slov o Pushkine," in Otechestvennye zapiski, no. I Uanuary r866), II7-27. 28. Venok, p. 203. 29. When Shtorkh died in December 1878, K. K. Grot assumed the correspondence and running of the subscription; when he became ill and went abroad, F. P. Komilov took over (ibid., p. 198).

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES

49-5 5

I

89

30. "Podpiska na pamiatnik Pushkinu jOt vysochaishe uchrezhdennogo komiteta)," Golos, no. 323 (November 22, 1871), p. 3· 31. Contributions and contributors are listed in: Russkaia starina 3, jr871), 648-50 and 794; 4lr87I-72), 461, 595, and 699-700; 5 (1872-73), 348-54 and 686; 7 (1873), s86; in Vestnik Evropy, 18]2: I, bk. 2, 8?0-?6; 2, bk. 4, 922-26; 3, bk. 6, 907-10; and 5, bk. ro, 930-33; and in Galas, no. r?IJanuary 17, 1872). 32· Venok, p. 204. 33· For a listing of articles on Opekushin's monument and the various competitions, see V. I. Mezhov, ed., Puschkiniana, pp. 27-35 passim; see also I. M. Suslov, Pamiatnik A. S. Pushkinu v Moskve, and S. Librovich, Portrety Pushkina jSPg, 1890). There exist two short studies of Opekushin's life and works: L. R. Varshavsky, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Opekushin, I84I-I923 jM: Iskusstvo, 1947), and N. Beliaev, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Opekushin, I 84I- I923 IM: Iskusstvo, 19 54). 34· M. L. Neiman notes that "so strongly has Opekushin's work entered our consciousness that Pushkin's image is already automatically associated with it" jlstoriia russkogo iskusstva, ed. I. E. Grabar' et al. [M: Nauka, 196 5], vol. 9, bk. 2, 35· 36. 37· 38. 39· 40. 41. 42.

43·

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

44·

45·

46.

252).

TsGIAgM, f. 418, op. 202, d. 26, 1. 31-31 ob. TsGIAgM, f. 418, op. 202, d. 26, l. 39 ob. TsGIA, f. 733, op. 193, d. 504, l. 41 ob.-42. Otechestvennye zapiski, no. r2jDecember 1876), 250-5 I; cited in M. E. Saltykov jN. Shchedrin), Sobranie sochinenii jM: Khud. Lit., 1973), p. 366. M. E. Saltykov jN. Shchedrin), Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 15: 222-23. K. la. Grot, la. K. Grot, p. 171. The society's well-known Trudy (Works), which were published between r8r2 and 1828, is still a valuable source of materials on language debates of the period. N. P. Giliarov-Platonov, "Vozrozhdenie Obshchestva liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti v 1858 godu," in Sbornik Obshchestva liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti na I 89I god (M, 1891), p. 146. This was originally given as a speech at an open session of the OLRS on December 7, r886, and is reprinted in N. P. Giliarov-Platonov, Sobranie sochinenii, 2: 292-308. On the reviving of the OLRS, see also Obshchestvo liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti, pp. 40-43; N. B. Barsukov, Zhizin' i trudy M. P. Pogodina, I6: 26-28; and Longinov's article cited inn. 5 I below. See A. G. Dement'ev, Ocherki po istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki 184o-sogg., pp. 347-48. Giliarov-Platonov, Sobranie Sochinenii, 2: I46. B. S. Esin notes that in Russia the slogan "freedom of the press" often meant merely "freedom from censorship," and that "in its bourgeois interpretation" it only entered Russian thinking with the Aksakovs jRusskaia gazeta i gazetnoe delo v Rossii, pp. r8-19). Aksakov and the other Slavophiles felt that a free press would give them the chance to counter the radicals' influence-basically the same kind of argument Longinov had used against Pisarev jsee N. G. Sladkevich, "Slavianofil'skaia kritika 40-50-kh godov," in Istoriia russkoi kritiki, r: 345). Giliarov-Platonov, Sobranie Sochinenii, 2: 141. The tradition of oratory, understandably, took on a great importance in Russia, especially in times of harsh censorship and political reaction, but its influence-for obvious reasons-is hard to gauge and is often overlooked by historians. OLRS president in r88o and organizer of the Pushkin Celebration Sergei Iur'ev is a prime example of someone whose main influence was through his speeches rather than his few writings or the journals he edited (see Aleksei Veselovsky, "Iz vospominanii o starom druge," in V pamiat' S. A. Iur'eva, pp. 145-46). A detailed account of the society's activities may be found in Obshchestvo liubitelei, pp. 77-So, from which this list is taken.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

I

90

NOTES TO PAGES

55-60

47. L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, first series (M-L: Khud. Lit., 1934), s: 272-73. Because the tsar had refused the OLRS its in-house censor, the OLRS stopped work on the volume which would have included this speech, and it remained unpublished until I928. 48. Despite its failure to evade censorship, the OLRS did publish a series of distinguished scholarly works in the sixties, including K. S. Aksakov's Russian grammar (I86o); P. V. Kireevsky's collection offolk songs (in ten parts, r86o-1874-a project Pushkin himself had initiated); and V. I. Dal''s still valuable dictionary (r86r-r866). For the complete publications list through 19II, see Obshchestvo liubitelei, pp. 195-99. 49· On the feud between the OLRS and the Petersburg radicals, see "Liberal'nye tendentsii moskovskogo obshchestva liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti," Russkoe slovo, no. 4 (r86o), 138-48 (its author is identified as N. V. Shelgunov in Obshchestvo liubitelei, p. 59 n. r); and Moskovskie vedomosti, nos. 65, 66, 69, So, and 82. so. I. Khrushchov, Bereg, no. 107 (July ro, r88o), p. 2. 5r. Obshchestvo liubitelei, p. 77 .In an article announcing the rebirth of the society in June 1858, Mikhail Longinov concluded his discussion of its function by saying that "we consider it our duty to commemorate with a good word the memory of those noble activists in the fields of literature and scholarship who have laid the groundwork for an honest and universally useful cause" ("Obshchestvo liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti," Russkii vestnik, bk. r [June r8s8], 612). 52· Mikhail Longinov,letter to the editor, Nashe vremia, no. 33 (r862), and issued as a separate brochure. 53. Longinov,"Iz sovremennykh zapisok," Russkii vestnik, no. 6 (June r86r), 125. Cf. Pogodin's similar sentiments in a letter to Viazemsky: "It is indeed depressing to look at the present disregard for literature. We must restore tradition [Nado vozstanovit' predanie]" (in N. B. Barsukov, ed., Pis'ma N. P. Pogodina, S. P. Shevyreva i M. A. Maksimovicha k Kniaziu P. A. Viazemskomu r825-1874 godov [SPg, 1901], p. 77).

3. The Celebration That Organized Itself

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

r. I. F. Vasilevsky, "Nabroski i nedomolvki. ltogi moskovskikh 'krasnykh dnei,'" Molva, no. r63 (June I5, r88o), p. r. Quoted in greater length above in the

Introduction, pp. 9-ro. 2. Cf. the titles of two basic works on the period: P. A. Zaionchkovsky, Krizis samoderzhaviia na rubezhe r87o-r88o-kh godov, and Richard Wortman, The Crisis of Russian Populism. See also M. I. Kheifets's somewhat tendentious Vtoraia revoliutsionnaia situatsiia v Rossii and Franco Venturi's fundamental work Roots of Revolution. 3. On Katkov, seeN. A. Liubimov, Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov i ego istoricheskaia zasluga (SPg, r889), an apology by his coeditor; S. Nevedensky [S. S. Tatishchev], Katkov i ego vremia (SPg, r888); Martin Katz, Mikhail N. Katkov, which contains a bibliography; chap. 4 in Edward C. Thaden, Conservative Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Russia; Catherine T. Nepomnyashchy, "Katkov and the Emergence of the Russian Messenger," Ulbandus Review I, no. I (fall 1977), 59-89; and V. A. Tvardovskaia's excellent study, Ideologiia poreforemennogo samoderzhaviia (M. N. Katkov i ego izdaniia), to which my account of this period is especially indebted. I am following the usual convention in referring to "liberals" and "conservatives" for want of better terms. Marc Raeff has noted that Russian "liberals" in the political or social sphere often advocated "conservative" economic doctrines,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES

4· 5· 6. 7· 8.

9·

ro.

I

r.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

12. I3.

I4.

15. 16. I?·

60-64

I

9I

such as protectionism. Conversely, some political"conservatives" or "reactionaries" in the political sphere (like Katkov) were "liberal" in regard to economics. See his article "A Reactionary Liberal: M. N. Katkov," Russian Review I I, no. 3 !July I952), I 57-67, and n. IO below. The proreform paper Strana pointed out the anomaly of calling Katkov's stand "conservatism." It rejected Vestnik Evropy's assertion that behind Moskovskie vedomosti stood an entire conservative social group, on the grounds that "in Russia there is not, and cannot be, a whole social group that would deny all moral force to Russian society. No part of society can negate society itself-that would be absurd .... Is it really thinkable-we ask again-that there be such a society somewhere that would think this about itself? Where can you find a 'conservatism' that would reject society itself?" (L.P. [Leonid Polonsky], "Dva lageria ili dvadtsat'?'' no. 27 [April 3, r88o], p. 2). Zaionchkovsky, Krizis, p. 15 I; Tvardovskaia, Ideologiia, p. I 8 5 f. Editorial dated February 8, I88o, in M. N. Katkov, Sobranie peredovykh statei Moskavskikh vedamastei r 88o god, p. 82. Katkov, Sabranie peredavykh statei, pp. Io8-9. Ibid.,p. I59· Katkov, editorial, no. 66 (March 6, I88o), answering the liberal K. D. Kavelin's rejection of his position, in ibid., pp. 128-29. On the underground press, see V. V. Chubinsky, "Beztsenzurnaia pechat' revoliutsionnogo narodnichestva," in V. G. Berezina et al., eds., Ocherki pa istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki i kritiki, vol. 2 (L: Leningrad University, 1965), pp. 337-66. Katkov had championed the "classical" system, blaming the success of the revolutionary movement on the weakness of Russia's educational institutions. But the renewed terrorism of the late seventies dramatically undercut such arguments. On Katkov's role in the educational reform, see Alien Sinel, The Classroom and the Chancellery, pp. I68-69 and 225-26, and Katkov's collected editorials on school reform, edited by L. I. Polivanov and published as Nasha uchebnaia reforma (M, I89o). Galas was considered the leading "liberal" paper of the period. Significantly, however, the paper itself did not use that term, which suggested specifically Western parliamentary doctrine. Rather, the paper preferred to present itself as advocate of fulfilling the spirit of the Great Reforms of the sixties. See Paul A. Russo, "Galas, 1878-1883," pp. 395-400. B. P. Baluev, Paliticheskaia reaktsiia 8o-kh godov XIX veka i russkaia zhurnalistika, p. 20. B. I. Esin, Russkaia gazeta i gazetnoe delo v Rossii, p. 24. Under Nicholas, Faddei Bulgarin's Severnaia pchela, alone of all private papers, had the right to print political news, an unfair monopoly that Pushkin and his coterie fought in vain to challenge. On this period, see A. I. Stan'ko, Russkie gazety pervoi poloviny XIX veka. As Golos put it in I 88o, "a freer press was recognized as a necessary addition to the reforms that had been implemented [in the sixties], one of the most important conditions for their application" (editorial, no. ro4 [April 13, I88o]). See also Daniel Balmuth, "Origins of the Russian Press Reform of I865,'' Slavonic and East European Review 47, no. 109 !July I969), 369-88. Changes in the press laws from I865 to r88o are discussed in "Vnutrennee obozrenie," Vestnik Evropy, bk. 6 !June 188o), 813-36. Graf P.A. Valuev, Dnevnik r8n-r884, ed. V. la. Iakovlev-Bogucharsky and P.A. Shchegolev (Pd: Byloe, 1919), p. 127. One of the strongest advocates of a free press in 188o, the Tserkovno-abshchestvennyi vestnik, wrote that "one may boldly say that every issue of every paper coming out at the present time is thoroughly criminal-starting with the mast-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

192

I8.

I9. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

27.

28. 29.

NOTES TO PAGES

64-68

head and ending with the editor's signature-a complete violation of at least a hundred confidential instructions that retain their force in full but which, owing to the difficulty in applying them, are ignored by the censorial administration itself" ("Vnutrenie izvestiia," no. II4 [September 24, I88o], p. 4). N. K. Mikhaylousky, Sochineniia N. K. Mikhailovskogo, 4: cols. 916-23. Mikhailovsky's position is discussed below in Chapter 4· Cf. Loris-Melikov's remark, in a memorandum to Alexander 11, that the press "has a peculiar influence in Russia since, unlike the situation in Western Europe where the press is merely the spokesman of public opinion, here it influences the very formation of public opinion" (N. V. Golitsyn, "Konstitutsiia grafa LorisMelikova: Materialy dlia ee istoriia," Byloe, nos. 4-5 [April-May 19I8], p. I6o; quoted in Russo, "Galas," p. 3). "Nabroski i Nedomolvki. Itogi moskovskikh 'krasnykh dnei,'" Molva, no. I63 (June rs, r88o), p. r. "Po sezonu," unsigned feuilleton, Russkii kur'er, no. I67 (June 22, I88o), p. I. "Pushkinskaia nedelia v Moskve," Molva, no. 159 (June II, I88o), p. 2. "Zhurnal'nye zametki," Novorossiiskii telegraf, no. I6p (August 13, I88o), p. I. See V. I. Mezhov's bibliography, Otkrytie pamiatnika A. S. Pushkinu v Moskve v I 8 Bo godu; his more general bibliography, Puschkiniana; and the 9 3 articles listed in A. G. Dostoevskaia, ed., Muzei pamiati Feodora Mikhailovicha Dostoevskogo. G. Gradovsky, "Pamiati Pushkina," Molva, no. ISS (June 6, r88o), p. I. Kolomenskii Kandid [V. I. Mikhnevich], "Vchera i segodnia. Melochi pushkinskogo prazdnika," Novosti, no. I 56 (June IS, r88o), pp. 1-2. The general feeling among newspaper people at the time was that, as Russkaia pravda editorialized in no. 109 (August 21, I879), "Gazeta ubila zhurnal! [The newspaper has killed the journal!]" The paper asserted that "convictions" and "knowledge" had gone out of demand, and that "only the need for news [novosti, which could also mean 'novelty'] has remained." It noted the new trend toward commercial over "literary" papers. On the change in Russian papers from the late seventies to the eighties, see Baluev's conclusions in Politicheskaia reaktsiia, and N. M. Lisovsky, Periodicheskaia pechat' v Rossii, p. I09 f. The adaption of Pushkin's works into other genres and the creation of works based on the poet's biography have reached the proportions of a small industry in Russia, and there exists an immense secondary literature concerning Pushkin's influence on various aspects of Russian and Soviet culture, on Russian music, ballet, cinema, sculpture, and painting-not to mention his formative literary impact on poetry, drama, and prose. See the relevant Pushkin bibliographies, and the collection of articles in B. S. Meilakh et al., eds., Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. s. Paul Debreczeny, who has been examining the Russian popular image of Pushkin, has kindly pointed out to me that elements of popular culture, not extensively considered in this book, which focuses on the event as a "holiday of the intelligentsia," contributed in an important way to the success of the celebration. With the work of Debreczeny, Jeffrey Brooks, William Todd, Caryl Emerson, and others, it is to be hoped that both the context and the content of Pushkin's place in nineteenth-century Russian culture will be better understood. P. A. Monteverde, "Beseda," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. I 5 I (June 2, I88o), p. 2. Grudgingly, because the society failed to make any special provisions for journalists and even neglected to reserve places for them at its own public sessions. There were probably political motives at play here as well. See the criticism of the way the OLRS ran the celebration in: Novae vremia, nos. I 548 and I 5 56 (June 2 I and 29, I88o); Russkii listok, no. IOS (June 3, I88o); Russkii kur'er, no. I67 (June 22, I88o); and Delo, no. 7 (July I88o), p. 106.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES

68-69

I

93

30. Polivanov's informal protocols and notes on the meetings, from which part of the following information is taken, are preserved at TsGALI, f. 2191, ed. khr. 179, op.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I.

Polivanov (1838-1899) published a work on Zhukovsky, translations of Racine and Moliere, and articles on pedagogy, as well as school texts on language and literature. A proponent of the "classical" educational system, in 1890 Polivanov wrote a highly laudatory introduction to Katkov's collection of reprinted articles on the subject (cited above inn. 9). His five-volume Pushkin for children with commentaries published in 1887 won the Academy of Science gold medal. Polivanov promoted the "cult" of Pushkin in his gymnasium, which had important influence on two of his famous pupils, Valerii Briusov and B. N. Bugaev (later to be known as Andrey Belyi). Briusov describes Polivanov in his diaries of r89r-r893 and his autobiographical story "Moia iunost'," and Belyi left a touching portrait of him in Na rubezhe dvukh stoletii (1930; rpt. Letchworth, Herts.: Bradda Books, 1966). See also M. V. Riabin, "V pushkinskie dni 1899 goda ... (Stranichka iz istorii Polivanovskoi gimnazii)," Vstrechi s proshlym, no. 3 {M: Sov. Rossiia, 1978), pp. 6s-68. 3I. Turgenev and I. V. Samarin arranged the literary-musical presentations. The artist K. A. Trutovsky (1826-1893) drew up the plans for the "apotheosis," which he described in this way: "Deep in center stage a monument to Pushkin. Beside it, the personification of Russia. To the left, a group of costumed people: Genius introduces Pushkin into the society of representatives of European poetry, made up of: Byron, Shakespeare, Waiter Scott, Goethe, Dante, Homer, Sophocles, Anacreon. From Slavic poets-Mickiewicz. To the right another group: the allegorical figure of Pushkin's poetry with figures from his works from which music, theatrical art, and painting have taken themes and images; there too are personifications of these arts. In front center, children read Pushkin's folktales" (from the protocols of the Pushkin commission, April 23, r88o, TsGALI, f. 2191, ed. khr. 179, op. r, 1. 4). On the exhibition, see L. I. Polivanov, ed., Al'bom moskovskoi pushkinskoi vystavki 188o goda. The exhibit is also briefly described in Venok, pp. 323-28, and Torzhestvo orkrytiia pamiatnika A. S. Pushkinu, p. 26. 32. Goncharov did not attend for health reasons. His moving letter about Pushkin was read at the celebration and published in Strana, no. 4I (May 25, r88o), p. 2 (reprinted in Venok, pp. 79-81). Saltykov may have also been absent owing to ill health or because of his mixed feelings about the celebration. See his letter to lur'ev in M. E. Saltykov (N. Shchedrin), Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, I9: I 5 I- 52· Fet informed Polivanov that he would not attend and sent along a poem written for the occasion, "Na 26 maia I88o goda. K pamiatniku A. S. Pushkinu." The poem, quoted in Chapter 4, n. 20 below, was highly critical of the celebration and was notread publicly; Fet later published the poem in Vechernie ogni (r883). See I. L. Polivanov, "lz arkhiva Polivanova," Iskusstvo, no. r (1923), 339(and as a separate volume, M, 1923). Tolstoy's reasons for not attending the celebration are considered in the next chapter. 33· Leger's memoirs of the event, translated into Russian as "U pamiatnika Pushkinu," may be found in Moskva, no. 8(1965), 205-8. On Auerbach's congratulatory telegram, see I. B. Mushina, "B. Averbakh i pushkinskii prazdnik," in Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. 8{1: Nauka, 1978), pp. 276-78. Hugo also sent a telegram, which was read at the celebration (Venok, p. 78). 34· I. S. Turgenev, Pis'ma {L: Nauka, 1967), 12, bk. 2:243. It had been decided at the commission's meeting of April23 that "the toasts and speeches be communicated orally or in writing to the [OLRSI Executive Commission [Rasporiaditel'naia Kommisiial" (TsGALI, f. 2191, ed. khr. 179, op. r,l. 4). Dostoevsky, curious about the society's privileges, wrote to Iur'ev that "here in Petersburg, even at the most

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

194

35· 36. 37. 38. 39· 40. 41. 42. 43·

44·

45·

46.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

47.

48. 49·

NOTES TO PAGES

69-74

innocuous literary reading ... every line, even if it was written twenty years ago, must necessarily get permission to be read" (Pis'ma, ed. A. S. Dolinin, 4: I42). Turgenev's trip to Russia in I879 and his feud with Katkov are discussed in the next chapter. Russkaia mysJ', no. 3 (March I88o), quoted in F. M. Dostoevsky and A. G. Dostoevskaia, Perepiska. p. 46I n. 760. Turgenev, Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 238. See "Korrespondentsiia," unsigned, Strana, no. 47 (June I 5, I88o), pp. s-6, and Bartenev's note to the "Pis'mo I. S. Aksakova o Moskovskikh prazdnikakh po povodu otkrytiia pamiatnika Pushkinu," Russkii arkhiv, no. 5, bk. 2(I89I), 91. On excluding Dostoevsky, see I. S. Aksakov, "Pis'mo I. S. Aksakova," p. 97 n.; on the incident in I879, see Alan P. Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech and the Politics of the Right," p. 230. See N. P. Eroshkin, Jstoriia gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, 2d ed. (M: Vysshaia shkola, I968), pp. 240-41. "Moskovskii fel'eton," by "K," Novae vremia, no. I 5 I4(May I?, I88o), p. 2. "Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki," unsigned, Nedelia, no. 221June I, I88o), p. 708. lzvestiia moskovskoi gorodskoi dumy, I 5: col. 43 7. The following account of the duma meeting, including citations of delegates' speeches, are taken from this source. See also "Moskovskii fel'eton," by "K.," Novae vremia, no. IS I4(May I?, I88o), p. 2; "Letopis' gorodskogo upravleniia," Sovremennye izvestiia, no. I33 (May I6, I88o), pp. 2-3; and TsGIAgM, f. I79, d. 5 59, op. 2r, "Ob uchastii goroda [Moskvy] v prazdnovanii otkrytiia pamiatnika A. S. Pushkinu," May 7, I88oAugust 25, I88o. See, for example, "Moskovskie zametki," Golos. no. I39, (May 20, I88o), and the editorial in Sovremennye izvestiia, no. I34(May I?, I88o), p. 2, and Vostok. no. 48 !June 8, I88o), p. no n. 2. Preobrazhensky replied to Sovremennye izvestiia's "slanders" in Katkov's paper (letter, Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 140 [May 22, r88o], p. 3). Sovremennye izvestiia's "Ade" in turn countered Preobrazhensky's charges in his feuilleton of no. I 5 I !June 3, I88o), p. r. Not including money to open the two schools. See Sovremennye izvestiia, no. I40 (May 24, I 88o), p. 2. They spent 3,ooo rubles to decorate the duma hall, Tverskoi Boulevard, and the city and for fireworks; 4,ooo to house and feed the delegates; s,ooo for the dinner-reception; and gave 3,ooo to the OLRS. See Sumbul's report to the duma, Izvestiia moskovskoi gorodskoi dumy, col. 457-58, and Tikhonravov's "Ob"iasnenie," an open letter to Sumbul, published in Russkie vedomosti, no. Ip(May 23, I88o), p. 3· "Pushkinskaia nedelia," Molva, no. I 55 !June 6, I88o), p. 2. Cf. G. I. Uspensky's complaints about the inconvenience this caused for the delegates in his report for Otechestvennye zapiski, "Pushkinskii prazdnik," reprinted in G. I. Uspensky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 6: 4I 3-I 5· "Vnutrenie izvestiia," Bereg, no. 75 !June 7, I88o), p. 3· According to one highly colored Soviet account, part of the "druzhina's" plan was to create "newspapers that would look like progressive, even revolutionary publications, but which would meanwhile, on the sly, poison the public consciousness and discredit the revolutionary and liberal movement" (D. Zaslavsky, Vzvolnovannye lobotriasy [M: Politkatorzhan, I93IL p. 22). The Holy Brotherhood, however, apparently only really got started after Alexander II's assassination. See Stephen Lukashevich, "The Holy Brotherhood: I88I-I883," The American Slavic and East European Review I8 (December I959), 49I-509; and V. N. Smel'sky, "Sviashchennnaia druzhina (Iz dnevnika ee chlena)," Golos minuvshego I !January I9I6), 222-56; 2 (February I9I6), I35-63; 3 (March I9I6), I55-76; and 4(April I9I6), 95-IIO; title varies slightly from issue to issue.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

NOTES TO PAGES

74-77

195

so. Sovremennye izvestiia reported on January 23, r88o, that the Committee of Ministers had invited Tsitovich to Petersburg and offered him subsidies to run the paper. Even though the paper was forced to run a retraction on January 29, the secret about Bereg was out. See N. Emel'ianov, "Iz istorii russkikh ofitsiozov !879-80 gg.," pp. 72-80. 5r. For example, even though the very possession of underground papers constituted a crime, Berge utilized its privileged position to quote from them with impunity, mostly in order to try and prove that the liberal press-which it spitefully called the "aboveground" [nadpol'nyi] press-was in league with the revolutionaries. Such practices are denounced in Golos, no. roo (April9, r88o), p. 3; Novoe vremia, no. 1502 (May 5, r88o), p. 3; and Strana, no. 29 (April ro, r88o), p. 2. Both Saltykov and Mikhailovsky heaped scorn on Tsitovich and his undertaking. See, for example, Mikhailovsky's remarks in Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 5 (r88o), Sr; no. 8 (r88o), 256-58; and no. ro (r88o), 199. Saltykov satirized Tsitovich in both "Za rubezhom" (r88o-r88r) and "Pis'ma k teten'ke" (r88Ir882). See Saltykov (Shchedrin), Polnoe sobranie, 14: 568 n. 42. James Billington, in his Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism, misinterprets Bereg's position as that of "official liberalism" (p. I I 5 ). p. See N. Bel'chikov, "Pushkinskie torzhestva v Moskve v r88og. v osveshchenii agenta Ill otdeleniia." 53· Loris-Melikov's letter and Dolgorukov's response are quoted in Pis'ma F. M. Dostoevskogo k zhene, ed. N. F. Bel'chikov (M-L: Gosizdat, I926), pp. 360-61. 54· Editorial, Molva, no. Is 3 (June 4, I88o), p. r. 55· Novosti, no. I45 (June 3, I88o), p. 3· 56. Monteverde, "Beseda," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 152 (June 3, I88o), p. 2. This incident also helped turn other skeptics about the celebration into true believers. P. A. Gaideburov's Nedelia, for example, decided afterward that the celebration had been "a true revelation [otkrytie (pun on the 'opening' of the monument)]. Here are mounds of gold where we almost expected to find only rubbish" ("Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki," no. 24 [June I 5, r 88o], col. 769). 57. Peterburgskii listok, no. ros (June 3, r88o), p. 2. See also Novoe vremia, no. r 533 (June 5, I88o), p. 3. Quite perversely, Konstantin Leont'ev-who considered Iur'ev, Turgenev, Golos, and all other "liberals" to be merely "legal revolutionaries"-proposed that they should erect a monument to Katkov and put it right alongside that of Pushkin (!)."Let it be extreme, let it be an immoderate outburst of reactionary frenzy. All the better. It is time to learnhowtomake real reaction" ("Katkov i ego vragi na prazdnike Pushkina," Varshavskii vestnik, no. IS 5 [July 21, r88o], pp. 34). s8. TsGALI, f. 2191, ed. khr. Is s, op. r. The note is undated. The somewhat obscure penultimate sentence reads: "la ne ponimaiu, pochemu by [ne?] okazal prenebrezhenie ko mnogim peterburgskim gazetam lisheniem nashego priglasheniia tak tserimoniiami s Mask. Ved." lur'ev was displeased with press coverage of the celebration and agreed with Turgenev, Annenkov, and Aksakov that the OLRS should publish its own description. He wrote to Polivanov on July 22 that while "it is true that you are not in a condition to describe the festivities, [and] that all of the newspapers' lofty phrases make you nauseous, [but] it is still necessary to describe them, because so much falsehood has been printed that the lies seem to the reader to be the truth, and the truth, lies" (I. L. Polivanov, "Iz arkhiva Polivanova," Iskusstva, no. r [I923], 3404I). The original of this letter is in TsGALI, f. 2I9I, ed. khr. rss, op. I, and is reprinted (minus the section I have quoted here) in F. M. Dostoevsky: Novye materialy i issledovaniia, vol. 86 of Literatumoe nasledstvo, p. 513.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

196

NOTES TO PAGES

78-83

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

59· See Polivanov's extremely laudatory introduction to Katkov's collected editorials

on the reform, cited above, n. 9· 6o. "Dissonansy, narushaiushchie nyneshnee obshchestvennoe nastroenie [Dissonances that disturb the current mood of society]," editorial, Molva, no. 134 (May r6, 188o), p. r. 61. Editorial, Strana, no. 27 (April 3, 1880), p. 2. 62. Editorial, Sovremennost', no. 79 (May 13, r88o), p. 1. 63. Molva, no. 158 (June ro, 188o), p. 3· According to a laterreport, the affair ended in a trial for libel, but I have not found any independent corroboration of this. 64. Apparently an unintentional pun. "Po sezonu," unsigned feuilleton, Russkii Kur'er, no. 167 (June 22, 188o), pp. 1-2. See also "Pushkinskii prazdnik," Amicus [P.A. Monteverde], S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 164 (June 16, 188o), p. 2. 65. For example, A. Filonov's Poet Pushkin. Obshchedostupnoe chtenie. Pisano k otkrytiiu pamiatnika velikomu poetu v Moskve (SPg, 188o), with one reviewer described as "astonishing in its vulgarity, incoherence, and illiteracy" ("Novye knigi," Delo, no. 8 [August 188o], 342). See also "F. B." 's survey of "Iubileinaia literatura o Pushkine," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 8 (August 188o), 779-89, which he describes as mostly "the unripe fruit of hurried work" (p. 779). 66. On June 4 most of the delegates gathered at Lentovsky's "Hermitage," reputedly the best public amusement park ("obshchestvenno-uveselitel'nyi sad") in Moscow. The Hermitage featured an orchestra and chorus that performed works of Pushkin set to music, an elaborate presentation of the main stages in Pushkin's life done in large transparencies, a replica of the monument to Pushkin (which was duly unveiled), electric lights (still a novelty at the time), and fireworks. Many other parks in Moscow, Petersburg, Odessa, and elsewhere took the cue from Lentovsky and presented their own "Pushkinskie spektakli." Most newspaper commentators, who shared the general intelligentsia contempt for the low brow, dismissed these shows as "a profanation." The theatrical paper Sufler reported that while these productions enjoyed great success, "these summer theaters did not worry about honoring Pushkin the great artist so much as they worried about collecting rubles from a trusting public" ("Pushkinskii prazdnik," no. 43 [June 12, r88o], p. 3). 67. "Pushkinskaia nedelia v Moskve," Molva, no. 157 (June 8, r88o), p. 1. 68. Uspensky, Polnoe sobranie, 6: 420 and 419. 69. I. S. Aksakov, "Pis'mo I. S. Aksakova," p. 92. 70. Zhelnobobov's address first appeared in Colas ("Khronika," no. 167), and is reprinted in Venok, pp. 192-93. 71. "Bukva" [I. F. Vasilevsky], "Pushkinskaia nedelia v Moskve," Molva, no. rs8 (June ro, r88o), p. 3· Leont'ev noted sarcastically that "the church itself gave its blessing to poetry" ("Katkov i ego vragi na prazdnike Pushkina, r," Varshavskii vestnik, no. ISO [July IS, r88o], p. 3). 72. Vostok, no. 48 (June 8, I88o), p. 170 n. I. 73· "Po sezonu," unsigned feuilleton, Russkii kur'er, no. 167 (June 22, r88o), p. 2. 74· "Vnutrennie izvestiia," Bereg, no. 72 (June 4, r88o), p. 2. Roman Jakobson in Pushkin and His Sculptural Myth (The Hague: Mouton, I975) notes that the Orthodox tradition "severely condemned the art of sculpture, ... did not let it into churches, and ... understood it as a pagan or diabolical device (the two concepts were equivalent for the church)" (p. 40). 75· I. Khrushchov, "Vpechatleniia odnogo iz deputatov na otkrytii pamiatnika Pushkinu," Bereg, no. ro6 (July 9, r88o), p. 1. 76. "Chestvovanie pamiati Pushkina v Peterburge," Molva, no. r 57 (June 8, I88o), p. 2. The 1837 incident was revealed in P.A. Viazemsky's letters, first published

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES

77· 7S. 79·

So. Sr. 82. 83. 84.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Ss. 86.

S7SS. S9. 90. 91. 92. 93-

83-90

197

in rSSo in Bereg, nos. 74, ur, II3, I I4, and us, and in Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin. 1826-1837 g.: Po dokumentam Ostafevskogo arkhiva i lichnym vospominaniiam kn. Pavla Petrovicha Viazemskogo ISPg, rSSo). I discuss the conflict in more detail in my article "Pushkin in rS99.'' to appear in a forthcoming issue of California Slavic Studies. The first quote is from Sovremennye izvestiia, no. I 5siJune 7, rSSo), p. 2, and the second from "Moskovskie zametki," unsigned feuilleton, Col os, no. r6o !June r I, rSSo), p. r. Venok, p. 29. In his generally inaccurate eyewitness account of the unveiling, written forty-four years after the fact, M. A. Grishechko-Klimov describes how the crowd grabbed the wreath out of Turgenev's hands (TsGALI, f. 3S4, ed. khr. roi, op. I). Grishechko-Klimov recounts how Turgenev led a poverty-stricken old woman up to the monument and asserts that she was Pushkin's old flame Anna Kern (who had died in IS79). "Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki,'' Nedelia, no. 24(June IS, IS8o), p. 772. "Po sezonu," unsigned feuilleton, Russkii kur'er, no. I67(June 22, rSSo), p. 2. Pis'ma, 12, bk. 2: 270. See also M. M. Kovalevsky, "Vospominaniia o I. S. Turgeneve," Minuvshie gody, no. S (August I9o8), pp. 12-13. Venok, p. 213. A. F. Koni recalled that when Katkov held out his glass to Turgenev for the second time, Turgenev "coldly looked at him and covered his goblet with his palm." When Maikov told Turgenev he should forgive and forget, Turgenev replied: "Well, no ... I am a wise old bird-you won't fool me with champagne!" (Vospominaniia o pisateliakh IL: Lenizdat, I965]. p. rs6). Dostoevsky, who sympathized with Katkov, reported to a friend that Turgenev had told him himself that he had "moved his hand away and did not clink glasses" (F. M. Dostoevsky, Pis'ma, 4: IS3)Although the scandal in ISSo concerned Colas's reporting of the event (see below), it has been remembered by historians primarily for Turgenev's snub. See, for example, Edward C. Thaden, Conservative Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Russia, p. 3S. Golos, no. 1571June 7, rSSo). p. 4See "Beseda," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. r6o (June r2, I8So), p. 3, and Mikhnevich's comments in "Pushkinskii prazdnik," Novosti, no. 153 !June 12, rSSo), p. 2. Aksakov seems to suggest that the protest was his idea I"Pis'mo," p. 94)Monteverde, "Beseda," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 165 !June 17, rSSo), p. 2. "Moskovskie zametki," unsigned feuilleton, Golos, no. r661June 17, rS8o), p. r. "Neznakomets" [A. S. Suvorin]. "Nedel'nye ocherki i kartiny," Novae vremia, no. rss61June 29, IS8o), p. 2. "Znamenie vremeni," editorial, Nedelia, no. 241June 15, I88o), p. 746-47. Notably, Nedelia had been very skeptical about the celebration at first. See "Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki," no. 221June r, rSSo), cols. 695-700. "Primirenie vo imia Pushkina," editorial, Molva, no. r621June 14, r8So), p. r. Editorial, Sovremennye izvestiia, no. 1591June rr, r88o), p. 2. Editorial, Gal os, no. r6o !June rr, rS8o), p. I. Cf. Russkaia pravda's more cautious assessment in an editorial of August 30, 1879(no. rrS): "There is no doubt that at the present time no honest journalist will exaggerate the scope uf his influence at all but will fully realize and recognize the humble role assigned to him in the state mechanism and won't give in to self-deception on that score. He knows that now, as before, he expresses his own personal opinions and those of the circle of readers on his side, and nothing more than that, and he knows that these opinions do not

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

198

NOTES TO PAGES

91-95

commit anyone to anything, and that each person of whatever social position is free to accept or reject those opinions at will. He knows that the Russian newspaper in one way or another does influence the course of public life, but he also knows that the Russian newspaper is not such a force that it must be reckoned with."

4· Turgenev's Last Stand 1.

2.

3· 4·

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

5·

6. 7. 8.

9· w. I I. I2.

Annenkov wrote that "it was not the lack of national sympathies in his soul that made Europe a necessity for his existence, but the fact that intellectual life flowed more generously there" IThe Extraordinary Decade: Literary Memoirs, trans. Irwin Titunik [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, I968[, p. 2031. See also Leonard Schapiro, Turgenev, chap. I 3, and Charles A. Moser, "Turgenev," 57-58. The reactions to Virgin Soil are surveyed by A. G. Tseitlin in "Nov'," I. S. Turgenev: Novye materialy i issledovaniia, vol. 76 of Literaturnoe nasledstvo, pp. Io6-48. Isaiah Berlin has referred to the failure of Virgin Soil as Turgenev's "ultimate defeat" I"The Gentle Genius," New York Review of Books 30, no. I6 [October 27, I983]1. Critical response to all of Turgenev's novels may be found in the notes to I. S. Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v tridtsati tomakh. At the time of this writing only the first twelve volumes of this edition have appeared lall of Turgenev's Sochineniia); I will refer to this edition whenever possible, citing it as "PSS, 2d ed." References to the earlier edition, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvadtsati-vos'mi tomakh, will be to Sochineniia or Pis'ma; volumes in each series are numbered separately. M. M. Kovalevsky, "Vospominaniia o I. S. Turgeneve," Minuvshie gody, no. 8 !August I9o8l, pp. 9-I2. On the meetings in I879, see: N. V. Alekseeva, "Vospominaniia P. P. Viktorova o Turgeneve," in M. P. Alekseev, ed., I. S. Turgenev (I8I8-I883-I958), pp. 288343, and P. L. Lavrov, "1. S. Turgenev i razvitiia russkogo obshchestva," in M. K. Kleman and N. K. Piksanov, eds., I. S. Turgenev v vospominaniiakh revoliutsionerov-semidesiatnikov.ireprinted in Turgenev: Novyematerialy, pp. 208-331. Several ofTurgenev's speeches from I879 may be found in PSS, 2d ed., 12: 335-40. "Turgenev v materialakh perliustratsii Ill otdeleniia i departamenta politsii," in Turgenev: Novye materialy, p. 325. Turgenev's day-to-day activities are traced in M. K. Kleman, Letopis' zhizni i tvorchestva I. S. Turgeneva. According to Lavrov 1"1. S. Turgenev," pp. 54-55 I, Turgenev may have been forbidden from appearing at some of the Petersburg meetings that had been planned and "advised" by the police to leave the country earlier than he had intended. P. L. Lavrov, "Sotsialisticheskoe dvizhenie v Rossii," pp. 73-74. PSS, 2d. ed., 12: 336-37. See Kovalevsky, "Vospominaniia," pp. 9-I3, and Lavrov, "1. S. Turgenev," p. 56. Turgenev did in fact aid several emigre revolutionaries, including his old friend Mikhail Bakunin. See Schapiro, Turgenev, pp. 2 79-80. The immediate pretext for Markevich's attack was Turgenev's sympathetic foreword to the article "En cellule. Impressions d'un nihiliste" by the revolutionary I. la. Pavlovsky, which had appeared in "Le Temps," reprinted in Sochineniia, I 5: I I 6- I 7. Sochineniia, I5: I84-85. Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 65. Ibid., pp. I 77 and I 98. See A. F. Koni, ed., Turgenev i Savina IPd, I9I81. Schapiro considers that in I879 Turgenev was living "in cloud cuckoo land as far as the political scene in Russia in I879 was concerned" lp. 2751, and argues that his trip in I88o, as well as the weakness of his speech on Pushkin, were due to his infatuation with the actress lp. 3061.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

NOTES TO PAGES 95-105

199

13. TsGALI, f. 2191, ed. khr. 179, op. r, Protocols of the OLRS Pushkin Commission. It was decided both to ask Turgenev to write the brochure and to invite him to join the commission at the first meeting, April IS (11. 1-2). Turgenev mentions the task in his letter to Stasiulevich of April 29 (Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 243). See also Turgenev's letters to Leger and Flaubert (Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 240 and 244-45). On the cabal against Katkov, see above, Chapter 3· I4. Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 236; see also Turgenev's letter to Loris-Melikov of October 6, I88o, pp. 310-II; and Henri Granyard and Alexandre Zviguilsky, eds., Lettres inedites de Tourguenev a Pauline Viardot et a sa famille (Paris: Editions l'age d'homme, I972), pp. 2I8 and 220. IS. Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 237; cf. pp. 238 and 243. I6. The rumor was that Tolstoy had denounced the whole celebration to Turgenev as "a comedy." See, for example, Novae vremia, no. I 556 (June 29, I88o), p. 2. N. K. Mikhailovsky agreed, but added that "besides being a worthless and hypocritical comedy, it was also a sincere one" (Sochineniia N. K. Mikhailovskogo, 4: col. 9I3). Il· "Nedel'nye ocherki i kartiny," unsigned, Novae vremia, no. 1S22 (May 2S, I88o), p. 2. I 8. L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 77: 106; also cited in Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 542. I9. Jeffrey Brooks, "Russian Nationalism and Russian Literature," p. 323· 20. See his poem "K pamiatniku Pushkina," in A. A. Fet, Vechernie ogni (M: Nauka, 1971), p. 17. The poem refers to the celebration as a "torzhishche, gde gam i tesnota, I Gde zdravyi russkii smysl primolk kak sirota" ("a bazaar, a crush and din, I where Russian common sense fell silent like an orphan"). Fet informed the OLRS that he could not attend the celebration for reasons of health. Strakhov wrote to Fet that he had read "your marvelous verses written against the celebration. I then understood why they didn't read them publicly" (p. 6ss). 21. From "Tak chto nam delat'?" of I882, in Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie, 25: p6. 22. Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie, 30: 170-7 I. In his draft he had written, "I know several instances of insanity among the people because of this unresolved question" (p. 364). 23. Ibid., I6: r6-I7; quoted from Tolstoy's Letters, trans. and ed. R. F. Christian (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978), 2: 338. 24. Il'ia Tolstoy, Moi vospominaniia (M, 1914), p. I47· 25. P.A. Sergeenko, "Turgenev i Tolstoy," Prilozhenie k zhurnalu "Niva" na 1906, no. 9-12 (SPg, I9o6), pp. 48-49. 26. SeeP. I. Biriukov, Biografiia L'va Nikolaevicha Tolstogo, 3d ed. (M-Pd, I923), 2: 179, and Emest Simmons, Leo Tolstoy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1946), p. 340. 27. Pis'ma, 12, bk. 2: 248-49. The OLRS protocols for the meeting at which it was decided to ask Turgenev to take on the project states clearly that the brochure was to be read "on the day of the celebration by the Commission for Popular Reading Rooms in Moscow" (TsGALI, f. 219I, ed. khr. 179, op. I, l. I). Turgenev acknowledged the task in a letter to Stasiulevich, Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 243; he says that the brochure is to be distributed free but does not mention that it is specifically "for the people." 28. Pis'ma, s: 120-21. 29. "Mimokhodom. Pushkinskaia nedelia v Moskve," Molva, no. I)9 (June 11, r88o), p. 2. 30. "Korrespondentsiia," signed "Odin iz publiki," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. I 58 (June IO, r88o), p. I. "Odin iz publiki" may have been P.A. Monteverde, who used his regular pseudonym "Amicus" for other correspondence about the celebration. 3I. Editorial, Golos, no. I 56 (June 6, I88o), p. 1.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

200

NOTES TO PAGES IOS-I I I

32. M. E. Saltykov IN. Shchedrin), Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 19: 424. 33· See, for example, the comments of M. A. Venevitinov reproduced in F. M. Dostoevskii: Novye materialy i isssledovaniia, vol. 86 of Literaturnoe nasledstvo, pp. 502-4. The misnaming of the poem occurred because when Zhukovsky first published the poem after Pushkin's death, he had altered the first line to read "Opiat' na rodine! la posetil"; hence "Opiat' na rodine" became its title in the posthumous works and in Annenkov's edition. See A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii !Jubilee Edition), 3, bk. 2: 1262-63. 34· Sergeenko, "Turgenev i Tolstoy," p. 49· Venevitinov suggested that Turgenev himself "was the last cloud of the literary animation of the forties, which had lost its way in the dark sky of our time" IDostoevsky: Novye materialy, p. 503). 35· Nikolai Strakhov, "Vospominaniia o F. M. Dostoevskom,'' reprinted in F. M. Dostoevsky v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2: 349· Strakhov's slavophile orientation, and his benefit of hindsight !i.e., Dostoevsky's subsequent success) should be kept in mind. 36. References to Turgenev's speech, hereafter given in the text, are to PSS, 2d ed., vol. 12. Parts of his speech recall two lectures he had given on Pushkin in r86o !see Pis'ma, 4: 65-66 and 469-70), a large fragment of which he later used in his "Vospominaniia o Belinskom" !first published in Vestnik Evropy, no. 6 [1869]; Sochineniia, 14: 22-63). Turgenev shortened the speech by about 20 percent for reading; among the cuts, which were reinstated when the speech was published, was a call to remember Belinsky, who had died on Pushkin's birthday !May 26, the day on which the unveiling had originally been set). See N. V. Izmailov's notes to the speech, PSS, 2d ed., 12: 681-87. 37. It was commonly thought that Pushkin had just matured at the time of his sudden death. Izmailov IPSS, 2d ed., r 2: 686) suggests that Turgenev may have mistakenly thought that Pushkin's letter to N. N. Raevskyof 1825 in which he wrote, "Je sens que mon ame s'est tout-a-fait [sic] developpee-je puis creer" lA. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh, ro: 127), had actually been written not long before his death. Turgenev may have confused this with a similar statement about Pushkin's being at the height of his powers which was made by Zhukovsky in his famous letter to S. L. Pushkin upon his son's death. Hence Turgenev concluded that Pushkin himself felt that he was on the threshold of a new and greater stage in his career just before he died and had not yet fully proved himself. Many of Pushkin's contemporaries as well as later critics, however, have shared the opinion that Pushkin died too early to achieve the "world" status of a Goethe, Shakespeare, or Dante, too early to say his "last word." See, for example, D. S. Merezhkovsky's Vechnye sputniki (Pushkin), 3d ed.l 1906; rpt. Letchworth, England: Prideaux Press, I97I), esp. pp. 7-Io. Cf. also the concluding words of Dostoevsky's speech: "Had Pushkin lived longer, then among us, perhaps, there would be fewer misunderstandings and arguments than we see today. But God decreed otherwise. Pushkin died in the full flowering of his powers, and indisputably carried off to the grave some great secret. And now we, without him, are divining that secret" jF. M. Dostoevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, 26: I48-49). 38. Kovalevsky, "Vospominaniia," p. I 3; Strakhov's words are quoted in PSS, 2d ed., 12: 685. The poor reaction to the speech was also noted by A. F. Koni, Na zhiznennom puti IM, I9I6), 2: 97-98, and L. Nelidova, "Pamiati I. S. Turgeneva," Vestnik Evropy, no. 5 II909), p. 234, who thought that the speech "was delivered superbly, and was much applauded, but its content pleased far from everybody." 39· Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 249. 40. See Chapter I, n. I8 above. On Annenkov as a Pushkinist, see B. L. Modzalevsky,

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES I I I-II6

4I.

42. 43· 44· 45. 46.

47. 48.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

49·

so. s 1.

52· 53·

20I

"Raboty Annenkova o Pushkine," in his Pushkin (L: Priboi, 1929), pp. 275-396, and Pushkin: Itogi i problemy izucheniia, via the index. Annenkov saw Pushkin as (to use V. B. Sandomirskaia's label)"a conservative liberal," very much in the spirit of 1880. He concluded his article on Pushkin's social ideals by asserting that Pushkin "will always remain what he was during his life-the representative model of humane development [predstavitelem tipa gumannogo razvitiia] in his epoch, an example of a man who in all circumstances preserved a living civic feeling, and during his whole life displayed unflagging energy in advocating just and honest relationships among people (for which he was often accused of rebellious liberalism [bespokoinyi liberalizm]), finally, a man who always and with all his heart desired for his homeland an increase in rights and freedom within the bounds of legality and accepted politics-which has been confirmed by all of Russia's past and present." "The whole young generation was moved," Turgenev wrote with some hyperbole to Annenkov in March. "They understood that there is still something to be learned from us old men .... Bravo! Bravo! 'La vieille garde ne meurt pas, ne se rend pas-elle attaque elle meme'" (Pis'ma, I2, bk. 2: 223). Notably, Annenkov's memoir also exacerbated bad feelings between Dostoevsky and the Vestnik Evropy group by reviving an old slander against him. See F. M. Dostoevsky and A. G. Dostoevskaia, Perepiska, p. 463 n. 776; and Alan P. Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech and the Politics of the Right," pp. 232-35. Lavrov, "I. S. Turgenev," p. 62. Sochineniia, I 5: 268-69. Drafts and variants are not included in PSS, 2d ed. "Korrespondentsiia," signed "Odin iz publiki," S. Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. I 58 (June 10, I88o), p. 1. Seen. 30 above. "Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki," Nedelia, no. 24 (June IS, I88o), p. 772. Quoted in Lavrov, "1. S. Turgenev," p. 43· "Can you describe my character in five letters?" Turgenev asked Polonsky in 1881. The answer was: "T-P-Y-C-b [cowARD]" (la. P. Polonsky, Povesti i rasskazy [SPg, I88s], p. 577, quoted in Schapiro, Turgenev, p. 303). Uspensky did not want to have to give a speech as the delegates did on June 6. See A. I. lvanchin-Pisarev, Khozhdenie v norad (M, 1929), p. 37S· G. I. Uspensky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 13: 228. Uspensky's articles are reprinted in 6: 407-4s. Saltykov (Shchedrin) Polnoe sobranie, I9: 159-60. Saltykov had written to Ostrovsky two days earlier that "clever Turgenev and crazy Dostoevsky [umnyi Turgenev i bezumnyi Dostoevsky] succeeded in hijacking the celebration from Pushkin for their own interests" (p. I 58). James Billington, Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism, p. I I8. See also Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution, p. 694. N. K. Mikhailovsky, Revoliutsionnye stat'i (Berlin, 1906), pp. 7 f. On the debates within the People's Will, see Venturi, Roots, chap. 21, and on Mikhailovsky's position see Billington, Mikhailovsky, pp. Io8-14, on which my account is primarily based. Billington calls Mikhailovsky's position "critical populism." Literatura Sotsial'no-Revoliutsionnoi Partii "Narodnoi Voli" ([Paris], 1905), p. 90; discussed in Billington, Mikhailovsky, p. 247. See also Venturi, Roots, pp. 692-94· See Saltykov's letter in his Polnoe sobranie, 19: I 58. Saltykov wrote in a letter of May rs complaining about the censorship that "although they promise us easier times, that's still in the future .... I think those times will come, but I don't think that they will extend onto that soil common to all mankind that comprises 'Otech. zap.'s' pia desideria. For our journal, it seems there is no right or left-all cards are beaten.... The result of such things is this: how to survive the liberals.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

202

54· 5 s. s6. 57· sS. 59· 6o. 6r. 62.

NOTES TO PAGES I 17-126

I've been taking care of 'Otech. zap.' for twelve years, I've seen Longinov, seen Shidlovsky, and still-alive I be with my soul intact! But these liberals, who knows, may do us in [podkuz'miat]" (p. 153). Sochineniia, 4: cols. 918-19. Ibid.: cols. 912 and 919. Ibid.: cols. 949-52, passim. Ibid.: col. 952· "Mr. Oransky," quoted in L. Alekseev, "Pochemu vskipel bul'on," Russkoe bogatstvo, no. 12 (December r88o), p. ss. Sochineniia, 4: col. 9S8. Golos, "Sovremennoe sostoianie russkoi pechati," no. 273 (October 8, r882); quoted in Paul A. Russo, "Golos, r878-r883,'' p. 398. Sochineniia, 4: col. 923. Ibid.: col. 924.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

5· Dostoevsky "Hiiacks" the Celebration r. "Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki," unsigned feuilleton, Nedelia, no. 27 (July 8, r88o), p. 869. 2. So labeled by I. F. Gorbunov, according to Mikhnevich, "Pushkinskii prazdnik," Novosti, no. 149 (June 7, r88o), p. r. 3· "Znamenie Vremeni,'' Nedelia, no. 24 (June rs, r88o), p. 746. 4· Editorial, "U pamiatnika," Peterburgskaia gazeta, no. rrr (June 8, r88o), p. r. s. "Mimokhodom," Sovremennye izvestiia, no. rsr (June 3, r88o), p. r. Apocalyptic expectations were running high in Russia during this period. See James Billington, Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism, chap. 8. On Russian messianism in general, see Ernest J. Simmons, ed., Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (New York: Russell & Russell, 1967); and N. 0. Lossky, Kharakter russkogo naroda (Frankfurt: Possev, 1957), chap. 8. 6. Nikolai Strakhov, "Otkrytie pamiatnika Pushkinu, " Semeinye vechera, no. 6 (r88o), 267-68. There is no question that Dostoevsky and his supporters, as well as the general public, thought of his appearance at the celebration as a confrontation or "duel" with Turgenev. On their rivalry, see Iurii Nikol'sky, Turgenev i Dostoevsky (Istoriia odnoi vrazhdy) (Sofia: Rossiisko-Bolgarskoe Knigoizdatel'stvo, 1921 ); Alan P. Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech and the Politics of the Right," pp. 222-s6; and Aleksei Gedroits, "Pushkinskie rechi Turgeneva i Dostoevskogo (7 i 8 iiunia r88og.)," Transactions of the Association of RussianAmerican Scholars in the U.S.A. 17, ed. Nadja Jernakoff (New York: Association of Russian-American Scholars, 1984), 2S 3-60. Dostoevsky followed with acute anxiety the attempts by Turgenev and his friends in the OLRS to manipulate the celebration, and it is clear from his letters that he felt obligated to come to Moscow and refute them. 7· Mikhnevich, "Pushkinskii prazdnik," Novosti, no. IS4 (June 13, 188o), p. 2. 8. F. M. Dostoevsky, Pis'ma, pp. 171-72; F. M. Dostoevsky and A. G. Dostoevskaia, Perepiska, pp. 346-47. 9· Vasilevsky, "Mimokhodom, Pushkinskaia nedelia v Moskve," Molva, no. 162 (June 4, 188o), p. 2. 10. "Literaturno-zhiteiskie zametki," Nedelia, no. 24 (June 1S, 188o), p. 776. 11. D. N. Liubimov, "Vospominaniia," Voprosy literatury, no. 7 (1961), rs6-66; reprinted in F. M. Dostoevsky v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2: 378, henceforth cited as "FMD v vosp." 12. The two sentences before the ellipsis are quoted by N. N. Strakhov in his "Vospominaniia of F. M. Dostoevskom," in FMD v vosp., 2: 352· What follows is

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES I26-I3l

13.

14.

15. r6.

r 7.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

r8.

19.

20.

203

from "Pushkinskie dni v Moskve, Rech' Dostoevskogo," Novae vremia, no. I 538 (June I I, I88o), p. 2. Aksakov here refers to Turgenev's "doubts" about Pushkin's status, expressed in his speech given the previous day. To begin a subscription without asking official permission was technically illegal, but the tsar approved the society's official request on August r, r88o; his decision was relayed to them by Governor-General Dolgoruky. The OLRS carried through on the project, and the monument to Gogol was finally unveiled in Moscow on April26, 1909. See Obshchestvo liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti pri Moskovskom universitete, pp. 101-3. Dostoevsky, Pis'ma, 4: 172. Many commentators noted that among Dostoevsky's most passionate followers were many women. Not all women, though, approved of Dostoevsky's adulation of Tat'iana as "the ideal of Russian feminine moral beauty." See, for example, the diary of the radically oriented E. P. LetkovaSultanova, cited below inn. 56. See FMD v vosp., 2: 352, and M. A. Venevitinov's description of the literarymusical evenings in F. M. Dostoevsky: Novye materialy i issledovaniia, vol. 86 of Literaturnoe nasledstvo, p. 506. Dostoevsky's speech first appeared in print on June 13 in Moskovskie vedomosti. It was reprinted together with an introduction and answer to Gradovsky and critics as the August r88o Diary of a Writer. F. M. Dostoevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, 26: 129-7 4; variants, pp. 2 7 3-348. Hereafter I will refer to this edition in the notes as PSS (vol. 26 unless indicated otherwise). Translations may be found in The Diary of a Writer, trans. Boris Brasol, pp. 9 5910!0 (convenient because it has an index), and in The Dream of a Ridiculous Fellow and the Pushkin Speech, trans. S. Koteliansky and J. M. Murray (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961), pp. 33-95. On the history of the composition of Dostoevsky's speech and its various drafts, see "Chernovye nabroski k 'Rechi o Pushkine,'" ed. with intro. by I. V. Ivan'o in Dostoevsky: Novye materialy, pp. ro1-r 3; and the extensive notes to the speech in PSS, pp. 440-507. Page references to the speech given in parentheses refer respectively to PSS and to Brasol's translation, in which I have made minor changes. Robert Belknap, in his lucid analysis of Dostoevsky's rhetoric of paradox, comments on a similar passage in the speech that Dostoevsky's "Russian culture and even his Russian nationalism are even more Russian because they are derivative, and his expansionism and mistrust of other national identities become a part of the all-embracing quality of that Christian love which characterizes Russia in his mind. At this point, the rhetorical techniques of conciliation through concession and paradox become indistinguishable from the ideology of identity through universality" I"Dostoevsky's Nationalist Ideology and Rhetoric," p. 99). Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, I 8r2-185 5 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 292. Malia writes that the Slavophiles made an "act of faith that there was something in the Russian people that made it worthwhile for their enormous but enslaved country to exist, an act of faith that by its sheer intensity supplied a measure of that very something which was sought" (p. 296). Cf. Dostoevsky's defense of that "something" in the introduction to the Pushkin Speech, and "the Prince's" (Stavrogin's) words in Dostoevsky's notebook: "We are bringing the world the only thing we can give it, which is, however, the only thing it needs [!]: Orthodoxy, the true and glorious, eternal creed of Christ, and a full moral regeneration in his name. We are bringing the world the first paradise of the millennium" (Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Notebooks for The Possessed, p. 226). "Can anyone say that the Russian people is only an inert mass," asked Dos-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

204

21.

22.

23.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

24.

25.

26.

NOTES TO PAGES I3I-I32

toevsky in the introductory remarks to the Pushkin Speech in the August edition of Diary of a Writer, "doomed to serve in an economic way the prosperity and development of our European intelligentsia, which has raised itself above the people ... [and] that the mass of the people itself contains only dead inertia? ... Alas, many people assert this, but I dared to proclaim something different" (503; 962). A similar sentiment can be found in Gogol's Selected Correspondence, in Tiutchev's poetry, the writings of K. S. Aksakov, and elsewhere. See in particular Leskov's well-known story "Na kraiu sveta" (r87s-r876), discussed in K. A. Lantz's article "Leskov's 'At the Edge of the World': The Search for an Image of Christ," Slavic and East European Journal 15, no. r (spring I98I): 34-43. Leskov took issue with certain aspects of Dostoevsky's messianism but also defended him against Leont'ev's attacks. See also K. P. Bogaevskaia, "N. S. Leskov o Dostoevskom (188o-e gody)," in Dostoevsky: Novye Materialy, pp. 6o6-20; and PSS, 483-86. "G-N," "Romanist, ne popavshii v svoi sani," Delo, no. 9 (September r88o), 159. Edward Wasiolek also expresses the discomfort that many feel when confronted with Dostoevsky's messianism when he writes that "to most of us, what Dostoevsky puts forth here [in his notebooks for The Possessed] as positive doctrine boils down to a repetitive and somewhat irrational hatred of the West and a fantasy of the Russian people as in some way the incarnate spirit of Christianity. The ideas are barely respectable in abstract form: they appear at best as the fervid and hallucinatory emanations of his characters" (Dostoevsky, The Notebooks, p. 185). I. I. Zamotin, F. M. Dostoevsky vrusskoi kritike, 1: 288. This is the most complete survey of reactions to the speech. Shevyrev's "Sochineniia Aleksandra Pushkina" appeared in Moskvitianin in I 841 and 1842; it is reprinted with cuts in the anthology Russkaia kritika XVIII-XIX vekov, ed. V. I. Kuleshov (M: Prosveshchenie, 1978). The passage cited is on p. I 34; cf. p. 145 · For Pushkin as Prometheus and Proteus, see, for example, I. P. Borozdna's poem "K A. S. Pushkinu" of I 828 and N. I. Gnedich's "A. S. Pushkinu po prochtenii ego skazki o tsare Sal'tane i pr." (1831?), in V. Kallash, Russkie poety o Pushkine, pp. 29 and 6o. This notion of Pushkin is still widespread in the critical tradition. Victor Erlich has noted that "Jakobson and Tomashevsky repeatedly call attention to the protean nature of Pushkin's vision which shuns consistency and steadfastly eludes the attempt at single interpretation on the part of the critic" (The Double Image: Concepts of the Poet in Slavic Literatures [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964], p. 17). In his eighth article of the series "Sochineniia Aleksandra Pushkina," in V. G. Belinsky, Sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh, 6: 367-68. See also p. 277. Notably, Pushkin himself never received permission to go abroad. Thirty-six years later, in his critique of Dostoevsky's speech, the last of the early Slavophiles, A. I. Koshelev, still criticized this aspect of the Russian character (see his article cited inn. 30 below). Gogol describes Pushkin's special nature in chap. 31 (Sobranie sochinenii v semi tomakh, 6: 332-72; see esp. pp. 334--48), and discusses Russian messianism in chap. IO ("0 lirizme nashikh poetov"J: "Why do they [France, England, Germany] not prophesy about themselves, why is Russia the only one to prophesy! Because more strongly than the others does it feel the hand of God in all that has· been visited upon her and it scents the approach of a new kingdom .... And this is what there cannot be in poets of other nations" (pp. 217-18). Translation from Nikolai Gogol, Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends, trans. Jesse Zeldin (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969), p. 5 r.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES 132-134

27.

28.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

29.

30. 31.

32.

205

Yet at the same time, Dostoevsky had from the start of his career argued against the "false notion of narodnost'" engendered by the "one-sided and satirical" view of Russians in Gogol's works. (See also the second "lecture" in his reply to Gradovsky.) Dostoevsky connected this to Gogol's imperfect understanding of Orthodoxy. Cf. his comment in a notebook of 1876: "In our country literature has provided the positive [e.g., Pushkin] rather than the satirical. Our satirists do not have a positive ideal on the inside. Gogol's ideal is strange; in the inside there is Christianity, but his Christianity is not Christianity" (Neizdannyi Dostoevsky, vol. 83 of Literaturnoe nasledstvo, p. 607; translation from Carl R. Proffer, ed., The Unpublished Dostoevsky, 3: I I 5 ). Because the Orthodox church never put much emphasis on developing a written canon of theology, Western scholars accustomed to the Roman Catholic tradition have had trouble defining the exact limits of Dostoevsky's "Orthodoxy." A. Boyce Gibson, for example, in his study The Religion of Dostoevsky (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, I973), stresses the idiosyncratic nature of Dostoevsky's Orthodoxy, using as his standard the often biased and by no means mainstream opinions of the critics Konstantin Leont'ev, Dmitrii Merezhkovsky, and Vasilii Rozanov (see pp. 6-7). Many modem works on Orthodoxy by Russians, on the other hand, commonly cite Dostoevsky's formulation of various doctrines or episodes from his novels as Orthodox paradigms. Perhaps the best introduction to the special "coloration" of Dostoevsky's Orthodoxy is Nikolai Berdiaev's Mirosozertsanie Dostoevskogo. Dostoevsky's religious background, education, and daily piety are discussed in Gibson, esp. pp. 8-13, and in N. Lossky, Dostoevsky i ego khristianskoe miroponimanie, chap. 2. On the Russian "organic" tradition, see esp. Robert T. Whittaker, Jr., "Apollon Aleksandrovic Grigor'ev and the Evolution of 'Organic Criticism'" (diss., Indiana University, 1970); VictorS. Kruptisch, "Apollon A. Grigor'ev and His 'Organic' Criticism" (diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1957); Wayne Dowler, Dostoevsky, Grigor'ev, and Native Soil Conservatism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), chap. 3; Victor Terras, Belinskii and Russian Literary Criticism: The Heritage of Organic Aesthetics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974); V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy, trans. George Kline (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), vol. r. See also my translation of Grigor'ev's "Paradoxes of Organic Criticism," in Ulbandus Review, no. 5 (Fall 1987), 123-59· Kireevsky himself had arrived at an Orthodox position via Schelling. See Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975l, pp. 13233, and N. G. Sladkevich, "Slavianofil'skaia kritika 40-50-x godov," in B. P. Gorodetskii et al., Istoriia russkoi kritiki, r: 328-29. A. I. Koshelev, "Otzyv po povodu slova, skazannogo F. M. Dostoevskim na Pushkinskom torzhestve," Russkaia mysl', no. IO (October I88o), 2-3. See, for example, Khomiakov's article of 1847, in which he came to a negative conclusion, '0 vozmozhnosti russkoi khudozhestvennoi shkoly" [About the possibility of a Russian school of art], in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii Alekseia Stepanovicha Khomiakova, 1: 73-101, and Kireevsky's surveys of Russian literature of 1829 and I831, in which he bemoaned "the poverty of our literature" (1. V. Kireevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [M, I86r], vol. I). Dostoevsky argued against the Slavophiles' literary views in his articles of the sixties (for example, in "Dva lageria teoretikov," 1862). Dostoevsky noted to himself in 1870 that "the Slavophiles are a gentleman's fancy. Their opinion of Pushkin (the poverty of Russian literature)" (The Notebooks, p. 82). "The Lord Jesus Christ laid the foundation for the Christian Church, but its life and activity were fully revealed on the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the apostles [at Pentecost], from which time begins its history" (Protoiereia Petr

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

206

33· 34· 35.

36.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

37· 38.

39·

NOTES TO PAGES

134-136

Smimov, Istoriia khristianskoipravoslavnoi tserkvi [Berlin, (I903?)], p. 3). On the Orthodox Russian view of Pentecost, see also: Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Baltimore: Penguin Books, I973), pp. 20, 246, and 253; William Palmer, Dissertations on Subjects Relating to the "Orthodox" or "Eastern-Catholic" Communion, p. I I 5; and Georges Florovsky, "The Sacrament of Pentecost," in his Creation and Redemption (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, I976), pp. I89-200. Dostoevsky, The Notebooks, p. 2I2. Ibid., p. 375· Note that the "Prince" (Stavrogin, Dostoevsky's devil's advocate) asks elsewhere in the notebooks how it is possible to compare anything Russian to Shakespeare (p. 2oo). Ibid., p. 254. N. Lossky comments: "Genuine beauty is spiritual perfection and thought embodied in perfect physicality (telesnost'), fully transfigured in the Kingdom of God or only partly transfigured in earthly reality" (Dostoevsky, p. 206 ). The beauty of the world mirrors the incarnating action of the divine force and the promise of the universal beauty of the Kingdom of God on earth at the end of time. The theologian Sergei Bulgakov takes this one step further, calling the Holy Spirit "Beauty" itself, and describing God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, as a kind of artist-genius (a notion reminiscent of Schelling): "All images of being, invested with its meanings, as creations in beauty are the art (khudozhestvo) of the Holy Spirit, Which is itself the universal Artist. The beauty of the world is the action of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Beauty" (O Bogochelovechestve, 2: 233). Bulgakov's description of the action of the Holy Spirit clearly derives at least in part from Dostoevsky and his readings of Pushkin's works. Even in Pushkin's day Orthodoxy was sometimes designated as "Bogochelovechestvo," referring to God's incarnation into human form. The concept gained wide currency in the seventies (see Billington, Mikhailovsky, chap. 8) and plays a central role in Dostoevsky's thought and works, where the "God-man" is opposed to the "man-god," or the "all-man" ("vsechelovek" or "obshchechelovek"), who like Nietzsche's "ubermensch" or the anti-Christ, wants to replace God himself. See, for example, Ivan Karamazov's nightmare in which the Devil describes a future when "a person will extol himself with the spirit of godlike, titanic pride, and the god-man will appear" (PSS, I4: 83). See also Berdiaev, Mirosozertsanie, chap. 7. Vladimir Solov'ev also used the term to define Orthodoxy in his famous "Lectures on Bogochelovechestvo" (I877-I88I), and Dostoevsky and Solov'ev's followers further enlarged upon its meaning. See in particular Bulgakov's magnum opus in three volumes, 0 Bogochelovechestve, cited in the previous note. Solzhenitsyn took these words as the keynote for his Nobel Prize acceptance speech of 1970. See A. G. Dostoevskaia, Vospominaniia, pp. 35 I-52, and Pis' m a, 4: 437-38. On Dostoevsky's reading "The Prophet" at the Pushkin Celebration, seen. 27 above and E. A. Shtakenshneider's diary quoted in Pis'ma, 4: 421-22. There is a large literature concerning Dostoevsky as a reader. See F. M. Dostoevsky, Bibliografiia, passim, and Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech," pp. 228-29. See Khomiakov, "Opyt katikhizicheskogo izlozheniia ucheniia o Tserkvi," or "Tserkov' odna," in his Polnoe sobranie, 2: I-27, and his other theological writings in the same volume. Dostoevsky's thinking about the church and Orthodoxy clearly owed much to Khomiakov. In July 1880 he wrote in his notebook (in reaction to another article by Gradovsky) that "the common folk is entirely within Orthodoxy and its idea .... Orthodoxy is the church, and the church is the crowning touch and is forever. What the church is-from Khomyakov" (Neizdannyi Dostoevsky, pp. 682 and 704; see also pp. 244 and 275; the translation here is from Proffer, Unpublished Dostoevsky, p. r 58).

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

NOTES TO PAGES

136-138

207

40. The theological importance of Pentecost pervades many aspects of Orthodox ritual and thought, from the feast of Pentecost itself to the ordering of services and prayers. On the impact of Pentecost on Russian Orthodox ritual, see Petr Lebedev, Nauka o bogosluzhenii pravoslavnoi tserkvi (M, I88I), I: I4; 2: IJ-IS, 43-5 I, 82 f. See also Orthodox Spirituality (New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1945 ), p. 77. It is also clearly reflected in the special canons sung on the holiday of Pentecost, which Dostoevsky had in his library: Evgraf Loviagin, Bogosluzhebnye kanony na grecheskom, slavianskom i russkom iazykakh, 3d ed. (SPg, 1875), pp. 7I-83. For evidence that Dostoevsky owned this book, see Leonid P. Grossman, Seminarii po Dostoevskomu (1922; rpt. The Hague: Mouton, 1972), p. 44· 41. The patriarchs replied to the papal encyclical In suprem a Petri Apostolica Sede in 1848. "The Church is all the people," wrote Dostoevsky in his notebook of 188or88I, "this was recognized by the Eastern patriarchs very recently in '48, in answer to Pope Pius IX" (Neizdannyi Dostoevskii, p. 676; Proffer, Unpublished Dostoevsky,) p. I 53· 42. "By its very action, that is, by the willful alteration of the creed [simvol)," wrote Khomiakov, "the Roman world let it be known that in its eyes the entire East was nothing more than a world of helots in matters of faith and doctrine. The Church's life ended for a whole half of the Church" (Polnoe sobranie, 2: 50; see also pp. 4849). See also Ware, Orthodox Church, esp. pp. 54-66, 2I8-23; Palmer, Dissertations, pp. 102-5 and 154-62; and Bulgakov, 0 Bogochelovechestve, 2: chap. 2, esp. p. I6r. 43· See, for example, the officially approved commentary to Genesis which Dostoevsky owned, Georgii Vlastov, Sviashchennaia letopis' pervykh vremen mira i cheloveka, 2d ed. (SPg, 1879), pp. 129-34. For evidence that Dostoevsky owned this book, see Grossman, Seminarii, p. 43· In Dostoevsky's writings there is a clear link between the Tower of Babe! and the Babylon of the Apocalypse, a connection that is explicit in Russian. In the original Hebrew, the same word signifies Babel and Babylon, a similarity that carried over more explicitly into Greek and Russian than into English. (In Russian "The Tower of Babe!" is Vavilonskaia bashnia, "Babylon" is Vavilon.) In Dostoevsky's letters, essays, and fiction both Babel and Babylon are recurrent symbols of that satanic pride, stubbornness, and blindness which he predicts will lead the world into civil war, cannibalism, and general disaster. See, for example, Pis' m a, 4: sS, and PSS, 14: 25, 230, 235, and 238. 44· Berdiaev, Mirosozertsanie, pp. I87-88. Berdiaev points out that there is no other messianic model besides the Judeo-Christian one. 45· Nicholas Zemov, Eastern Christendom (New York: G. P. Putnam, I96I), p. I4I. See also Andrei Siniavsky's (pseudonym Abrarn Tertz) discussion of the importance of the Holy Spirit in Russian culture in Colas iz Khora (London: Stenvalley Press, I973), pp. 246-so (translated as A Voice from the Chorus [New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, I976), pp. 246-so). 46. Gary Saul Morson notes that "the I88o Diary anticipated that Dostoevsky's own Pushkin speech might inaugurate the reign of brotherhood" as "an apocalyptic catalyst." He suggests that "by the time he undertook the Diary, Dostoevsky had apparently come to believe that the millennium might be both literal and imminent" (The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky's "Diary of a Writer" and the Traditions of Literary Utopia [Austin: University of Texas Press, I 98 I], pp. 36 and 37). Aksakov also saw the Pushkin Celebration as part of divine history and as a turning point in intelligentsia relations, although not as harbinger of apocalypse. See his "Pis'mo I. S. Aksakova o Moskovskikh prazdnikakh po povodu otkrytiia pamiatnika Pushkinu," p. 90.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

208

NOTES TO PAGES 138-141

47· G. I. Uspensky, "Prazdnik Pushkina (Pis'ma iz Moskvy-iiun' r88o)," in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 6: 426. This was the article with which Saltykov was so upset (see above, Chapter 4). Notably, Uspensky originally called the continuation of his series on the celebration "Na rodnoi nive," echoing Dostoevsky's summons to "Smiris', prazdnyi chelovek, i prezhde vsego potrudites' na rodnoi nive [Humble thyself, idle man, and, first of all, labor in thy native pasture]"; for Uspensky the words clearly evoked the populist ideal. Cf. D. N. OvsianikoKulikovsky's comment in his Istoriia russkoi intelligentsii, vol. 2 (SPg, I909I9II), p. 205: "Dostoevsky energetically, although not deliberately, lent support to that system of ideas and emotions which was the psychological basis of the revolutionary illusions of our socialists." Leont'ev criticized Dostoevsky's conception of Orthodoxy found in the Pushkin Speech on a similar basis-that it was too close to the "rosy, humanitarian" views of the Socialists (see PSS, pp. 48 3-8 5). 48. So argued by D. D. Blagoi in his ideologically slanted "Kritika o Pushkine," pp. 204-5. Drafts of the speech indicate that Dostoevsky associated Aleko with the Utopian Socialists (i.e., Dostoevsky himself before his arrest), the Populist terrorists, as well as withpopulism in general (PSS, pp. 454-5 s); what emerges is a broad portrait of the Russian intelligent as a generalized "type." 49· N. K. Michailovsky, Sochineniia N. K. Mikhailovskogo, 4: cols. 922 and 949· so. Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech," p. 249. On the problem of Dostoevsky's politics, see also: L. P. Grossman, "Dostoevsky i pravitel'stvennye krugi r8yo-kh godov"; Edward Thaden, Conservative Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Russia, esp. pp. 59-88; Hans Kahn, Panslavism: Its History and Ideology, 2d ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), esp. pp. 208-22, and his "Dostoyevsky and Danilevsky: Nationalist Messianism," in Emest J. Simmons, ed., Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought, pp. soo-r 5. 5 r. Alexander Gorshkov, "Propovednik 'Novogo slova,'" Russkoe bogatstvo, no. 8 (August r88o), 7. p. Editorial, "Chto zhe dal'she?," Molva, no. r6r (June 13, r88o), p. r. Zamotin surveys reactions in Dostoevsky v russkoi kritike, r: chap. 7; see also PSS, pp. 463-69. 53· Thaden, Conservative Nationalism, p. 142. 54· Dostoevsky, letter to E. A. Shtakenshneider, July I?, r88o, in Pis'ma, 4: 182-83; cf. pp. 174-7 5 and r89. Gradovsky's article, "Mechta i deistvitel'nost'," appeared in Colas, no. I74 (June 25, r88o), pp. r-2. See also K. D. Kavelin's analysis of the polemic in an open "Pis'mo F. M. Dostoevskomu," in Vestnik Evropy, no. I I (I88o), 431-56 (translated in Marc Raeff, ed., Russian Intellectual History [New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, I966]). Dostoevsky vehemently rejected Kavelin's arguments in his notebook. See Neizdannyi Dostoevsky, pp. 67 4-8o, 69496 (Proffer, Unpublished Dostoevsky, pp. I 5 I, I 54-57, I74-76). 5 s. Dostoevsky, letter to K. P. Pobedonostsev, July 25, I88o, cited in PSS, p. 472. 56. According to Strakhov, Dostoevsky praised Liza Kalitina of Nest of the Gentry as well as Natasha Rostova of War and Peace as positive types. The applause for Turgenev drowned out Dostoevsky's mention of Tolstoy's heroine, and Dostoevsky removed mention of her in the printed versions (see Strakhov in FMD v vospom., p. 35 I; Dostoevsky: Novyematerialy, p. ros; and PSS, pp. 496-97). The radically oriented university student E. P. Letkova-Sultanova complained that not Liza but Elena of On the Eve, "the first woman political activist," represented the true ideal. See her "0 F. M. Dostoevskom. Iz vospominanii," in Zven'ia, vol. I (ML, I932), pp. 459-77, reprinted in FMD v vospom., pp. 380-98. Sultanova asserts that Turgenev was unhappy and embarrassed to accept the ovations; others reported that Turgenev was moved to tears. Later on in the speech, Dostoevsky referred to Turgenev and Tolstoy as the

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES 141-149

57.

58. 59·

6o. 61. 62.

63.

209

"most talented" Russian writers, but in comparison to Pushkin still"only 'gentlemen' who write about the narod [lish' 'gospoda,' o narode pishushchie]" (PSS, p. I44). Cf. his comment of 1870: "Their studies, though accurate (Leo Tolstoi, Turgenev), reveal to them, as it were, a life that is not their own. Only Pushkin is a true Russian" (The Notebooks, p. I 57). On how the speech ended up in Moskovskie vedomosti instead of Iur'ev's Russkaia mysl' or Novae vremia, and on Dostoevsky's somewhat disingenuous politicking over where he would publish the speech, see PSS, pp. 456-57; Dostoevskii: Novye materialy, pp. 509-10; and Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Puskin Speech," pp. 239-40. Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech," p. 256. On the fate of Slavophilism after Khomiakov, see Berdiaev, Khomiakov, chap. 8, and Thaden, Conservative Nationalism, chap. IO. Dostoevsky referred to Pushkininhis notebook of I8?6-I877 as "the chief Slavophile of Russia" (Neizdannyi Dostoevsky, p. 579; Proffer, Unpublished Dostoevsky, p. Ss), but considered Katkov "not at all a Slavophile" (Pis'ma, 4: IS?). On Samarin's activity and philosophy, see esp. Boris E. Nolde, Iurii Samarin i ego vremia (Paris: Impr. de Navarre, [I926]). Berdiaev, Khomiakov, p. 232. Cf. Walicki's discussion of Khomiakov's theological "liberalism" in Slavophile Controversy, pp. 196-97. PSS, 14: 275; translation from Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Constance Garnett, ed. Ralph E. Matlaw (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), p. 282. Mikhailovsky wrote that "at the heart" of the problem with the Pushkin Speech was that Dostoevsky, "while expounding the harmfulness of European 'enlightenment,' did not utter a word of protest against the European economic system being established in Russia" (Sochineniia, 4: col. 947). On the new change in perspective, see "The Intrusion of Economics," chap. sin Richard Wortman, The Crisis of Russian Populism. Pollard, "Dostoevskii's Pushkin Speech," p. 256.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

Conclusion: Aftermath and Legacy 1. "Paradoksy skromnogo obyvatelia," Don, no. 74 (July 8, r88o), p. 2. 2. See N. S. Rusanov, "Sobytie r marta i Nikolai Vasilevich Shelgunov," in N. V. Shelgunov, L. P. Shelgunova, and M. L. Mikhailov, Vospominaniia v dvukh tomakh, vol. r (M: Khud. Lit., 1967), p. 354· 3· "Pushkinskii vopros," Russkaia mysl', bk. 12 (December r88o), 32. 4· Lenin himself thought that Loris-Melikov's constitutional project might have led to "bourgeois political parties." SeeP. A. Zaionchkovsky, Krizis samoderzhaviia na rubezhe I87o-r88o-kh godov, p. 292. Zaionchkovsky notes that the revolutionaries "underestimated" the "concessions" that the tsar was willing to make, and suggests-surprisingly-that the assassination was a mistake (p. 299). s. See V. A. Tvardovskaia, Ideologiia poreformennaia samoderzhaviia, chap. 5; and B. P. Baluev, Politicheskaia reaktsiia 8o-kh godov XIX veka i russkaia zhurnalistika, chap. 1. 6. I. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia I. S. Aksakova, 5: 29. On Aksakov during this period, see Edward C. Thaden, Conservative Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Russia, chap. 10, and Stephen Lukashevich, !van Aksakov (r823-I886), chap. 6. 7· K. P. Pobedonostsev i ego korrespondenty (M-Pd, 1923), r, bk. r: 49, and Pis'ma Pobedonostseva k Aleksandru Ill, vol. 3 (M, I92S-I926), p. 324, both quoted in Baluev, Politicheskaia reaktsiia, p. 21.

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

210

NOTES TO PAGES 150-155

8. SeeS. Shpitser, ed., "Ispoved' grafa Loris-Melikova," Katorga i ssylka rs, no.

2

[1925), IIS-25.

9· Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime !New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974L p. 298. 10. Baluev discusses the changes that transformed the Russian press in chaps. 2 and 3 of Politicheskaia reaktsiia. See also N. M. Lisovsky, Periodicheskaia pechat' v Rossii, 1703-1903 gg., pp. 103-IIS; V. Rozenberg and V. Iakushin, Russkaia pechat' i tsenzura v proshlom i nastoiashchem; B. P. Koz'min, Russkaia zhurnalistika 70-kh i 8o-kh godov XIX veka IM, 1948l; and A. N. Bokhanov, Burzhuaznaia pressa Rossii i krupnyi kapital[M: Nauka, 1984). On changes in the reading public, see Jeffrey Brooks, "Readers and Reading at the End of the Tsarist Era," pp. 97-150. Russian universities were also forced to surrender much of their autonomy under new regulations put into effect in r884, at which time M. M. Kovalevsky and other liberal professors were fired. I 1. See Nicholas Tyrras, "On Dostoevsky's Funeral," Slavic and East European Journal, 30, no. 2[I986), 271-77. I2. Mikhailovsky's famous article "Zhestokii talant [The cruel talent]" of I882 and many other later ones were directed against Dostoevsky's posthumous political influence. In the period around World War I, Maxim Gorky continued the battle against what he labeled "karamazovism [karamazovshchina]." I3. Landmarks: A Collection of Essays on the Russian Intelligentsia, trans. Marian Schwartz [New York: Karz Howard, I977). See esp. Bulgakov's comments on pp. 45 and 55· I4. See L. R. Lansky, "Poslednii put', Otkliki russkoi i zarubezhnoi pechati na smert' i pokhorony Turgeneva," I. S. Turgenev: Novye materialy i issledovaniia, pp. 633701.

15. Iu. Nikol'sky, "Delo o pokhoronakh I. S. Turgcneva," p. 148. Stasiulevich accom-

I6.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

I?.

IS.

I9. 20. 2 I. 22.

23.

panied Turgenev's body, reporting in Novosti and Vestnik Evropy on the problems he encountered, and took an active role in organizing the funeral. In letters to his wife [in vol. 3 of M. M. Stasiulevich i ego sovremenniki v ikh perepiske, ed. M. K. Lemke [SPg, I9I2]), he expressed his full outrage at what the government was doing. Quoted in Nikol'sky, "Delo o pokhoronakh," pp. I48-49. The revolutionary P. F. Iakubovich also wrote a broadside defending Turgenev, which was distributed in Petersburg during the funeral. See "I. S. Turgenev [Proklamatsiia narodovol'tsev)," in M. K. Kleman and N. K. Piksanov, I. S. Turgenev v vospominaniiakh revoliutsionerov-semidesiatnikov, pp. 3-14, and Lansky, "Poslednii put'," p. 679. E. M. Feoktistov quoted in Nikol'sky, "Delo o pokhoronakh," pp. I52-53· On Tolstoy's problems with the secret police, see B. N-sky, "L. N. Tolstoy i departament politsii," 204-I5, and E. J. Simmons, Leo Tolstoy, pp. 372-74. Quoted in Nikol'sky, "Delo o pokhoronakh," p. 153. [I. la.] Aizenshtok, "Pushkinskaia godovshchina 1887 goda," Knizhnye novosti, no. 5 [1937), 45-47· "3oe Ianvaria v knizhnom magazine 'Novogo Vremeni,'" Novae vremia, no. 3924 !January 30, I887), p. 2. Ibid. L. N. Pavlenkov, "Periodicheskie izdaniia i knizhnoe delo v Rossii v 1887 godu," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 4 [1888), 240-48. According to Pavlenkov, in I887 Pushkin's 163 titles led the field in belletristics, which was the largest category of books in Russian published in Russia during that year, accounting for 782 of a total 3, 5 I 8 titles.[The next most published writer of fiction was Tolstoy, followed

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES 155-156

24.

25.

26.

2 7.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

28. 29.

30. 3 r.

211

by Krylov, Gogol, and Turgenev.) My own count, attained by adding up the figures provided in P. N. Berkov and B. M. Lavrov, eds., Bibliografiia proizvedeniia A. S. Pushkina i literatury o nem, r886-I899(M-L: AN SSSR, I949), is 2,305, 723 (148 titles). The anonymous author of "Razgrom knizhnogo magazina," Knizhnye novosti, no. 9 (I936), 21, gives radically smaller figures for the publishing of Pushkin in 1887, although he confines his discussion to twelve new editions of Pushkin's "complete works." Based on a population of ro6,6Io,8I4. I calculate that by the end of the century there was one Pushkin volume for every four literate Russians-an approximation based on literacy figures given in M. V. Muratov, Knizhnoe delo v Rossii v XIX i XX vekakh. Maurice Friedberg, Russian Classics in Soviet Jackets, p. ix. Skabichevsky was editor of the Pavlenkov edition of Pushkin, the most popular one-after that of Suvorin. He charged Suvorin with creating a "manufactured scandal." See his survey of "Russkaia literatura v I887 godu," in Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, no. I (January I, I888), p. 2. The fight over Pushkin in 1887 is reviewed by N. V. Shelgunov in his Ocherki russkoi zhizni (SPg, 1895), cols. 286302. On the publishing of Pushkin in r887, see also V. E. Iakushin's articles collected in 0 Pushkine (M, I899). The recriminations and anger were the more bitter owing to the death in January I887 of the young poet S. la. Nadson. V. P. Burenin, writing in Novae vremia, had accused Nadson of dishonestly accepting financial assistance from the Lit Fund. The sick, destitute poet was devastated by the article, which apparently hastened his death from consumption. See "Obo vsem. Obshchestvennokriticheskie zametki (Vmesto 'Vnutrennego Obozreniia')," Russkoe bogatstvo, no. 2(I887), 174-94, signed "Sozertsatelia." Nedelia concluded that the polemic over the Pushkin anniversary of I887, so "full of abusive words, mutual intrigue, insinuation, slander, and threats of all kinds of retribution," had demonstrated the new depths to which Russian literature had sunk. "The intrusion of hireling elements into our literature" had made free and honest discourse impossible and was "one of the main reasons for the demoralization of the literary milieu" (editorial, "Nashi zhurnal'nye nravi," no. 9 [March I, I887], cols. 273-77). Suvorin was referring to the article cited above in Chapter I, n. 44· Skabichevsky defended himself in "Literaturnaia khronika," Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, no. 28 (January 29, I887), p. 2. Suvorin took another potshot at him in "Dva slova g. Skabichevskomu," Novae vremia, no. 3925 (February I, I887), p. 2. A. Suvorin, "Naputstvie 'Obedennomu sobraniiu,' "Novae vremia, no. 39I6(January 23, I887), p. r. In I 88o Bereg, for example, had attacked "liberals" who tried to make Pushkin out a revolutionary and railed against such "profanation of the great name" (editorial, no. 74 [June 6, I88o], p. I). Obzor commented in its editorial of the same date (no. 520, p. I) on "the obvious dishonesty of several of our journalists of the reactionary tendency who are trying to utilize today's ovations for Pushkin in order to throw rocks one more time at the fence of the newest Russian literature." On the conservatives' "exploitation" of Pushkin, see B. P. Gorodetsky, "Problema Pushkina v I88o-I90o godakh," Uch. zap. Len. ped. instituta im M. N. Pokrovskogo, 4, Fakul'tet iaz. i lit., no. 2 (Leningrad, I940), pp. 76-92. Viktor Ostrogorsky, Russkie pisateli kak vospitatel'no-obrazovatel'nyi material. Ostrogorsky also edited the influential, officially approved journal Detskoe chtenie. [N. G. Chernyshevsky], Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, ego zhizn" i sochineniia (SPg, I856). See Pushkin: Itogi i problemy izucheniia, pp. 55-59. Both Cher-

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

212

32.

33· 34·

35. 36.

37·

38.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

39· 40.

41.

NOTES TO PAGES 157-161

nyshevsky and N. A. Dobroliubov believed that literature "possesses the capability of acting in an integral way upon a person's character and behavior" (la. A. Rotkevich, Ocherki po istorii prepodavaniia literatury v msskoi shkole, Izvestiia Akademii Pedagogicheskikh Nauk, no. so, [M, 1953], p. 237). Rotkevich demonstrates the intimate connections between radical thought and the theory and practice of teaching literature-usually overlooked in most evaluations of Russian literary criticism. This and the following two quotes are from V. S. Ostrogorsky, "V vidu ozhidaemogo otkrytiia pamiatnika Pushkinu," Novae vremia, no. 1266 (September 7, 1879), p. 3· Russian commentators in 188o seemed to be divided over whether Russian schools had saved or done disservice to Pushkin. Iulii Martov, quoted in Brooks, "Readers and Reading," p. 1or. See my article "Pushkin in 1899" in a forthcoming issue of California Slavic Studies. On the 1899 centennial, see also: Berkov and Lavrov, eds., Bibliografiia proizvedeniia Pushkina; V. V. Sipovsky, Pushkinskaia iubileinaia literatura r899-I900 godov; A. I. Faresov, A. S. Pushkin i chestvovanie ego pamiati; and P. N. Berkov, "lz materialov Pushkinskogo iubileia 1899g." A. Peshekhonov, "Neudavshiisia prazdnik," in Sbomik zhumala "Russkoe bogatstvo," ed. N. K. Mikhailovsky and V. G. Korolenko (SPg, 1899), p. 385. So described by Ch. Vertinsky in "Dvenadtsat' let tomu nazad. Pushkinskie dni r88?g. v Peterburge," Nizhegorodskii listok, no. 30 (January 31, 1899), pp. 2-3. I expand on this idea in "Pushkin in 1899." See also B. P. Gorodetsky, "Problemy Pushkina v 1880-1900 godakh," pp. 79-82. Iakushin's sentence of two years' exile to his Iaroslavl' home was shortened to eight months. See N. Rostov, "Pushkinskii iubilei i moskovskaia okhranka," p. 2!. On government censoring of Pushkin's works at the end of the century, see L. Polianskaia, "Proizvedeniia Pushkina i tsarskaia tsenzura (Po arkhivnym materialam)." On the objections of clergymen to the centennial, see my "Pushkin in 1899." A revolutionary tract against the centennial is reproduced in Robert Maier, "'Neskol'ko slov o Pushkine,' Nelegal'naia broshura saratovskoi sotsial-demokraticheskoi gruppy k pushkinskomu iubileiu 1899g.," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 16-18 (M: Zhurnal'no-gazetnoe ob"edinenie, 1934), pp. 1043-52. A group of emigre Ukrainians in Switzerland also put out a brochure on the jubilee protesting the tsarist government's suppression of the Ukrainian language. "N.K.," "Zhumal'noe obozrenie," Obrazovanie, no. 7-8 (1899), 126 and 131. Mir iskusstva, no. 13-14(May 1899). Discussions of symbolist criticism of Pushkin may be found in: D. D. Blagoi, "Kritika o Pushkine"; N. N. Petrunina, "90-e gody-nachalo XX veka," in Pushkin: Itogi i problemy, pp. 85-105; the chapter "Pushkin and the Symbolists" in Carol Ueland's forthcoming Columbia University dissertation, "Autobiographical Poemy of the Symbolists," which she generously shared with me; and in my "Pushkin in 1899." On the 1921 Pushkin Days, see Vestnik literatury 27, no. 3 (1921); Irina Odoevtseva, Na beregakh Nevy (Washington, D.C., n.d.), pp. 3II f.; John Malmstad, "Mixail Kuzmin; A Chronicle of His Life and Times," in M. A. Kuzmin, Sobranie stikhov (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1977-78), 3: 256 f.; and N. V. Loshchinskaia, "Aleksandr Blok i Pushkinskii Dom," in Pushkinskii Dam (L: Nauka, 1982), pp. 22-27. Several publications at the time suggested a direct ideological link through Dostoevsky between the 188o and 1921 celebrations. The "Dom literatorov" published a volume titled Pushkin. Dostoevsky (Pb, 1921), which included Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech with those given in 1921. Dostoevsky i Pushkin (SPg:

Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, Cornell University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,

NOTES TO PAGES 161-165

42.

43·

44· 45· 46.

47·

48.

Copyright © 2018. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

49·

so. 5 r. 52. 53·

54· 55·

213

Parfenon, 1921), also reprinted Dostoevsky's speech together with articles by Konstantin Leont'ev and the critic A. Volynsky (A. L. Flekser). It should be noted that 1921 was also the centennial of Dostoevsky's birth. Khodasevich's speech "Koleblemyi treunozhnik" [The shaken tripod] was first published in Vestnik literatury 27, no. 3 (1921), and then appeared as a pamphlet (SPg: Epokha, 1922). It was reprinted in Mosty 9 (I962), 3-ro. The translation is from Carl Proffer, ed., Modern Russian Poets on Poetry, pp. 69-70. A. Blok, "0 naznachenii poeta" [On the poet's calling], Sobranie sochinenii v vos'mi tomakh, vol. 6 (M-L: Khud. Lit., 1962), pp. I6o and I67. Translation from Proffer, Modern Russian Poets, p. 7I and 79, with slight alteration. Blok's mention of the "stove-pot" is a paraphrase of Pushkin's "Poet i tolpa" (I828), which Pisarev had used to attack Pushkin. Renato Poggioli, The Poets of Russia, 1890-1930 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, I96o), chap. 9. Boris Eikhenbaum, "Problemy poetiki Pushkina," in Pushkin. Dostoevsky, pp. 76-96; reprinted in B. M. Eikhenbaum, 0 poezii (L: Sov. pisatel', 1969), pp. 23-34· See Bibliografiia proizvedenii A. S. Pushkina i literatury o nem, 1937-1948, ed. la. L. Levkovich et al. (M-L: AN SSSR, I963), pp. 546-49, and the survey of the centennial in Pushkin: Vremennik pushkinskoi komissii, vol. 3 (M-L: AN SSSR, I93 7), pp. 492-517. Pushkin scholarship followed the lead, as evidenced in "the first experiment in collective r.esearch to elaborate the formula put forward in the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR [concerning the I937 jubilee]," the volume Pushkin: Rodonachal'nil< novoi russkoi literatury. See also the collection Sto let so dnia smerti Pushkina. Characteristic of the trend in popular criticism was V. la. Kirpotin's Nasledie Pushkina i kommunizma (I936; 2d ed., M: Goslitizdat, I938). "Podgotovka k Pushkinskomu iubileiu I 9 37g.," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. r 6I8, p. u6r. In the introduction to the same volume ("Nasledstvo Pushkina," pp. 5- 34), A. Tseitlin laid out some of the ideological themes that would predominate in Stalinist Pushkinology, and emphasized its intimate connections with socialist realism ("among its forerunners, to Pushkin belongs one of the central places" [p. 20]). Entire industries were mobilized for the 1937 celebration. Fund 384, d. r2r, op. I at TsGALI contains extensive documentation of Pushkin activities within the leather industry, coordinated by the central committee of the leatherworkers union. One typical resolution concluded that "one of the ultimate goals of our [factory] libraries and clubs is that not one worker in any of our concerns will remain unacquainted with Pushkin's works. We will cultivate and multiply the ranks of our Pushkinists." The fund also includes a bulky thirty-five-page rexographed book that details Pushkin activities in the leather trade, and extensive quotes from workers about their love for the poet. Between 1917 and I949, 45 million copies of works by Pushkin were published, 40 million of which were in Russian. From 1887 to I917, 10.7 million copies had been published. See the articles cited in Pushl