Pushkin's Influence

Pushkin played a vital role in Russian society and continues to possess an important stronghold over today’s Russian community. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art has been named in honor of Alexander Pushkin and is currently located in Moscow. This museum holds a limited number of Pushkin’s original works, but the museum has sculptures, art from ancient civilizations, prints, drawings, and a picture gallery. (Noll) During Pushkin’s life, he influenced many of Russia’s great writers. He was a friend, a colleague, and most importantly an inspiration. Anton Delvig was a lazy poet who attended school with Pushkin and became one of his best friends. [Upper, left-hand corner is a sketch is Delvig] The two shared many of the same beliefs which they contributed to the rest of the Russian writing community through their journal articles and poems. Ivan Turgenev was largely influenced by Pushkin and even delivered a eulogy at his funeral. (Merriman) Here is part of his speech:

“Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life. … “In a period of a people’s life that bears the designation ‘transitional,’ the task of a thinking individual, of a sincere citizen of his country, is to go forward, despite the dirt and difficulty of the path, to go forward without losing from view even for a moment those fundamental ideals on which the entire existence of the society to which he belongs is built.” (Merriman)

Here, Turgenev shows his appreciation for Pushkin and his lifelong struggles. Turgenev mentions that despite all of the “dirt and difficulty” that imposed itself on Pushkin’s life, he always moved onward without losing sight of what was most relevant and truly important in life. Pushkin's influence over his peers and the country of Russia in the past is obvious. Important writers such as Turgenev and even Dostoyevesky were able to easily recognize Pushkin's fantastic talent throughout his lifetime. They were also aware of Pushkin's potential to influence Russia and even the world far into the future. These brilliant writers were correct.

The many works of Pushkin are still being studied, debated, and enjoyed in countries throughout the world. His Little Tragedies became the first "Russian dialogue opera" and helped the country enter into the realm of global theater. Although his plays were not easy to perform, many directors made brave attempts. The Stone Guest was the first Pushkin tragedy performed as an opera. Dargomyzhsky, the opera's composer, wanted to retain the play's authenticity and therefore used a "word-for-word" technique in the performance. Complaints consisted mainly of beliefs that through the acting's preciseness in following the script, Dargomyzhsky actually detracted from Pushkin's characters like Don Juan and Laura, who were more improvisational. Many followed the attempts of Dargomyzhsky and many have continued to fail. [Dargomyzhsky's portrait is to the right of this page]

Through the videos introduced throughout this blog, what becomes most apparent is the variety of presentations and forms used to perform Pushkin's plays. We see a professional stage setting, a horde of students, and even a movie production reenacting each of these four tragedies. Each video shows a unique understanding of what Pushkin intended and each seem to fail. Looking past the differentiated attempts to act out these tragedies, what is also apparent is Pushkin's influence in today's society. Scholars continue to study Pushkin and yearn to discover how he stimulated and motivated his fellow Russians and continue to play a pivotal role in the world today.

The Tragedy of Pushkin's Little Tragedies

The Tragedy of Pushkin's Little Tragedies is that they are rarely performed because of how difficult they are to stage. In fact, there has not been a successful production of The Little Tragedies ever recorded in the West or in Russia; because of this, it is often stated that these works are best for recitation instead of staging (Evdokimova, 6). The first, and most obvious, problem in staging these works is their short length; due to their length, there is little action, little character development, and a narrative that obtains ambiguous endings and few theatrical effects. Because there are few effects and little action, the role of the actor becomes extremely important in relaying to the audience what is important, dramatic, and crucial--everything that the actor conveys to the audience must relate back to what the director and the ensemble has decided is Pushkin's intention. However, because the play is written to be ambiguous, the task of the actor is then nearly impossible. Ambiguous and generalized acting makes for uninteresting acting, and with a storyline that involves very little action, the show can quickly become a snooze-fest if the director and the ensemble are not one hundred percent clear on what they are trying to portray.

Why would Pushkin write something so ambiguous and difficult to stage? To answer this question, it is important to look back at the ideas of romanticism that Pushkin was employing in this work. Within romanticism, there are aspects of the "fragmentary, the inconclusive, the ambiguous...incompleteness was best represented by fragments and, therefore, in most cases, shorter forms" (10-11). Therefore, what makes Pushkin's tragedies even more difficult to stage is that their ambiguity is intentional and is all for the sake of romanticism. The director, actor, or reader is then left with the question of whether or not the play should be analyzed and picked apart. Should we, as a reader, strive to make sense of them? Should we strive to come up with a specific meaning, narration, action, and ending? Or, in doing so, would we be wrecking Pushkin's true goal of creating ambiguous, fragmented, brief tragedies of the human condition?

Another problem in staging lies in their groupings. Those brave souls who have attempted to produce The Little Tragedies have either staged them all together, back to back, as they were written, or have staged them individually. The problem with staging them all together is that often times the directors and actors try to find some large overarching theme or metaphor to connect all the plays together, often resulting in over-generalizations of each tragedy. If they are staged individually, the directors often add extra action and silence that was not intended by Pushkin in order to fill the time.

As you can see, the difficulties in staging the plays are numerous, and in my opinion, the problems lie in trying to fit Pushkin's tragedies into categorized theatrical genres that do not serve the plays or convey Pushkin's intentions. What is needed is a whole new style of theatre and acting--for example, Jerzy Grotowski created The Poor Theatre, Brecht created his own Brechtian technique, Artaud created the Theatre of Cruelty, etc etc. What this theatrical style would consist of is nearly impossible to say since we do not know what Pushkin's intentions were in writing the tragedies; however, we do know his feelings towards romanticism, and that seems to be a good starting off point, as little as it may be.

A Feast in Time of Plague

A Feast in Time of Plague is the shortest of the tragedies and in my opinion, the most ambiguous. The whole play takes place in real time during a feast amongst friends. The reader quickly discovers, during a toast, that one of their dear friends has just passed away from the plague that has taken over the city. The Master of Revels (Walsingham) then suggests a silent toast be made in honor of their friend, and after the toast is complete, Walsingham asks Mary to sing a sad song. Mary's song, which takes up a good portion of the already short play, educates the reader of the severity of the plague and narrates a story between two lovers who contemplate the doomed future of their love during this time of plague. Louisa criticizes the song, but faints once she hears a cart going by that is creaking from the weight of all of the dead bodies that it is carrying. Walsingham then sings a hymn to the plague, a more hopeful tone than that of Mary's that discusses facing the plague without fear because with its presence comes a promise of eternal life. A priest then appears who lectures the party-goers for their feast in time of the plague, and mentions to Walsingham the death of his mother and wife before attempting to persuade him to leave the party. In the end, the priest leaves alone, the feast continues, and Walsingham is lost in thought.

I believe that through analyzing this play, it becomes very apparent that these characters live in a world of extreme binaries. The first binary lives within the title of the production; these characters are literally wining, dining, and partying while a cart that is weighed down with bodies passes by. It is not just that they are eating during the plague, or even that they are feasting after a good friend's death: they are feasting during a plague, two aspects that lay on complete ends of the spectrum.

Their feast is the ultimate act of consumption--not only are they eating up the food, they are also eating up life. The first lines of the play indicate that their friend, Jackson, has just passed away. The characters then toast to the memory of Jackson. This toast and party, symbolizing life, is juxtaposed against what they are toasting to--the loss of life. This binary is further extended to the attitude of the party-goers themselves: their act of revelry completely overrides the emotion of grief that usually accompanies death and the loss of a friend.
Furthermore, the lyrics of Mary's hymn are borne out of a binary between life before the plague, and the lack of life after the plague:

Mary:
Long ago our land was blessed:
Peaceful, rich, and gay;
People then on days of rest
Filled the church to pray.
Children's voices full of cheer
Through the schoolyard rang;
In the fields both far and near
Scythe and sickle sang.

Now the church deserted stands;
School is locked and dark.
Overgrown are all our lands;
Empty groves are stark.
Now the village, bare as bone,
Seems an empty shell;
All is still--the graves alone
Thrive and toll the bell.

The last two lines of Mary's hymn point back to the binary between life and death: not only is the village dead now from the plague, the graves bearing the dead are more alive than the actual village. Walsingham's hymn lies in contrast to Mary's solemn hymn. While his hymn recognizes the malignancy and precariousness of the plague, the majority of the hymn focuses on overcoming the plague, and it has a more inspiring and encouraging tone.

Upon the entrance of the priest arrives another binary--one that exists between the priest and the rest of the party. In the end, this binary between the priest and the party-goers is broken upon the priest's exit; furthermore, the main binary between revelry and grief begins to be negotiated through Walsingham's reaction. The play only states that Walsingham is left lost in his thoughts, but what those thoughts are, we do not know. The rest of the narration has existed on two separate ends of the spectrum; whenever one aspect is mentioned, the complete opposite aspect comes into the scene not long after. Therefore, the ambiguous endings that have taunted the readers in all of the other tragedies exists within this world too, and it's presence is that much more highlighted through Pushkin's employment of extreme binaries. And perhaps, even most importantly, is Pushkin teaching the reader a lesson through the ambiguous ending of the tales, and specifically through the ending of the last tale? It is through the reader's yearning for a definitive answer that Pushkin is saying to the reader that they need to be comfortable living in the middle, comfortable looking for the gray areas, comfortable not living in a binary. The reader discovers, in the end, that they are like the characters in the narration, and instead of feasting in the plague, they need to accept the complexity of being "lost in thought."

Below is a clip of a production of A Feast in Time of Plague. Sorry for the inconvenience of not being able to find English subtitles, but hearing it performed in Russian is truly incredible.

The Stone Guest - A Deeper Look

The Stone Guest is the tale ending in heroic tragedy. Interestingly enough, Pushkin named this play after the Commander rather than his story's protagonist, Don Juan. It serves to foreshadow the appearance of the Stone Statue at some point in the story from the very beginning. The Commander seems to haunt the story from almost immediately when Dona Anna enters Scene I to offer her prayer and grievances to her fallen husband. (Evdokimova, 194)

Pushkin’s own life is very aptly portrayed in this story as the character Don Juan. A victim of political imprisonment, Pushkin was exiled and had secret hopes of returning to his home one day and escaping his banishment. Don Juan, similar to Pushkin's, was renounced as a man who does not believe in god; multiple times throughout the play, he is described using the term “godless.” This parallels Pushkin’s own life and beliefs as he was often accused of being an atheist throughout his time. (Evdokimova, 45) His character Don Juan follows this same path and we also discover that Don Juan is a poet after Laura recites his words in a song. When Don Juan meets his fateful death, it offers the impression that all heroes must parish and be removed from this earth. The Commander returns from his grave in the form a statue and as a jealous husband to protect his wife from the hands of Don Juan. We also discover that she did not even marry him for love, but was arranged to be married.The Stone Guest was the only of The Little Tragedies that Pushkin did not publish as he felt it gave too much insight into his feelings of distraught and unhappiness. From this poem we are given a taste of Pushkin’s inner personality and can see his tormented soul from the view of Don Juan.

This video offers a great dramatized version of The Stone Guest using only music and acting:

The Stone Guest

The Scene opens with Don Juan and Leporello discussing Don Juan’s return from banishment. Exiled by the King for murdering the husband of the beautiful Dona Anna, Don Juan feels no regret for his actions and believes that the King only banished him as protection from possible revenge, thus would not kill Don Juan if discovered. We soon learn that Don Juan is a ladies’ man, and has no limits, whether the woman is single, married, or widowed. He sees beauty and feels compelled to have it for himself. He returns in a poor disguise, that Leporello believes would not fool anyone and wants to reunite with Laura, whom he already assumes is in the arms of another man. Don Juan of course has no problem ridding Laura of any pesky men. We are introduced to Laura in scene II during the middle of a dinner party. She is an actress who appears to have no shame in bragging about her talents whether they are perfectly reciting lines or singing. After singing a song that was written by her past lover Don Juan, her current beau, Don Carlos shows his jealousy. They meet up after the party and Laura confesses her love for Don Carlos only to find Don Juan knocking at her the door. Don Juan and Don Carlos sword fight, resulting in the demise of Don Carlos. Laura and Don Juan are reunited and both suggest an unfaithful past but agree to discuss this in the future.

Scene III begins with Don Juan disguised as a monk trying to gain the heart of yet another woman, Dona Anna, the very woman whom he made into a widow. Since Dona Anna speaks only to men of deep faith, his disguise as a monk allows him the privilege of speaking with the widow. He reveals himself as a man who has fallen in love with Dona Anna’s beauty and yearns for the grief she has over her deceased husband. Don Juan claims to be a man by the name of Diego de Calvado. The two agree to meet again the very next day. Don Juan divulges his plan to meet up with Dona Anna the next day and orders Leporello to invite the statue of Dona Anna’s dead husband, The Commander to join the two lovers the following evening. Strangely, the statue appears to have nodded in acceptance of the invitation. The following evening, in the final scene, Dona Anna and Don Juan are together at Dona Anna’s house. Eventually, Don Juan reveals his true identity as the murderer of her husband. At first she is shocked and faints, but eventually she succumbs to Don Juan’s charm and almost leaves him with a kiss when a knock at the door is heard. None other than the Commander in statue form appears as an invited guest to the two’s secret meeting. Dona Anna faints and Don Juan takes the Stone Guests hand and descends into the depths of Earth.

Mozart and Salieri

Mozart and Salieri is a story of envy that results in the murder of Mozart and the questioning of the dual capacity of genius and villainy. The short play begins with Salieri discussing his plan to murder Mozart; this theme seems to run throughout the entirety of The Little Tragedies: each lead of the four plays start out knowing exactly what they are going to do, and as an audience member or a reader, we never see them think twice or vacillate on these terms (Evdokimova, 20). Therefore, Salieri's determination to kill Mozart thrusts him into the narrative up until the final moment of the play. The result is not difficult to guess; Salieri poisons Mozart, and at the end of the play Mozart dies and Salieri is left onstage with his dead friend and his lived goal of murdering him.

The reader or audience member is left with an ambiguous ending in the form of a nagging question: Why does Salieri kill Mozart? Is it out of envy for Mozart's musical genius? This question keeps bringing back the reader or audience member to the text. Because the play is so short, as are all of Pushkin's tragedies in this compilation, it can be assumed that every line, every word, every piece of text is crucial in portraying the story to the audience member. However, no where in the scene does Salieri say blatantly as to why he decides to murder his friend. Perhaps the clue is contained in one of Salieri and Mozart's exchanges on villainy and genius:

Mozart:
He was a genius,
Like you and me. And villainy and genius,
As you'll agree, my friend, sit ill together.

Salieri:
You think it so?
(He pours the poison into Mozart's drink)
Come, Mozart, drink.

Through analyzing the play, it becomes apparent that Mozart represents genius, as it is stated earlier several times by Salieri and alluded to in Salieri's deep jealousy of Mozart:

Salieri:
When genius, that immortal sacred gift,
Is granted not to love and self-denial,
To labor and to striving and to prayer--
But casts its light upon a madman's head,
A foolish idler's brow?...O Mozart, Mozart!

Salieri kills Mozart, committing a villainous crime, and therefore, rendering himself a villain. However, it is apparent in their aforementioned dialogue that Salieri does believe that villainy and genius can exist together. By committing villainy and seeing himself as a genius, Salieri is proving that genius and villainy can exist together (Evdokimova, 24).

An interesting juxtaposition, though, lives within this thought: through the act of murder and vilifying himself, Salieri is proving that villainy and genius cannot exist together; in this sense, villainy (Salieri) kills genius (Mozart), rendering them incompatible. Salieri's line in his last speech points to this realization.

Salieri:
Farewell my friend.
You'll fall asleep
Forever, Mozart! But could he be right...
Am I no genius? "Villainy and genius
Sit ill together." Surely this is wrong:
Take Michelangelo. Or is it only
A tale the dull and witless tell--and he,
The Vatican's creator, did no murder?

Villainy has murdered genius, meaning that Salieri is not a genius because he would be a villain. Salieri proves Mozart's genius by killing him and proving his theory correct that genius and villainy sit ill together. The play concludes with an identity crisis for Salieri because of Mozart's argument; therefore, in the end, Mozart has the same power over Salieri in death that he had in life.

Here are two separate and very different productions of this play. The first one is in Russian with English subtitles: the advantage of hearing it in Russian is that you can hear the rhythm and flow of Pushkin's original text that is so often lost in the English translations.



Below is the second clip of the play. Unfortunately, I could not find a good clip in English or one that had English subtitles. In addition, I could not find one with good enough quality that showed the death of Mozart, so I apologize that this version cuts off before the complete end of the production.

The Covetous Knight - A Deeper Look

The Covetous Knight is a complex play that cannot be defined in simple terms. An important factor that is a supreme theme throughout the piece is of money. Albert lacks money, the Jew who is a usurer, and the Baron who has money and chooses not to aid his son or even repay his own debts. Money’s role becomes most important in the relationship between father and son. (Evdokimova, 156) In Scene II, the Baron’s monologue serves to stress his wealth, his stingy attitude, and his distress about who will take over his kingdom and inherit his money. The Baron feels deceived by his own son, which leaves him weary of his future and cautious that his son would betray him. The Baron expresses his feelings for his son in these few lines:

“A raving madman and a spendthrift youth,
The comrade of licentious debauchees!
Before I’m cold, he’ll come! He’ll hurry down,
With all his crew of greedy sycophants,
To enter these serene and silent vaults.
He’ll rob by corpse and, when he has the keys,
He’ll cackle as he opens all the chests.”
(Evdokimova, 314)

The Baron feels his son’s youth serves as judgment impairment, giving the Baron heightened fears of what would happen upon his death bed. He recognizes that within moments of discovering his father’s death, Albert would strip his father of every worldly possession and treasure he once owned and would foolishly waste it all away. This introduces Pushkin’s ideas into the relationship between father and son as well as his thoughts on human nature. The Baron sees his wealth as a source of power, and this power allows him to thrive and “rule the world.” (Evdokimova, 163) Yet ultimately, the Baron finds his defeat when he is murdered by his own son and loses his ability to defend and rule the world.

The Covetous Knight

The scene opens with Albert the knight discussing his victory in battle with his servant Jean. Albert’s helmet and other protective gear are ruined from his fight and he is discussing his lack of funds to pay for new protective gear. The Jew enters and tells Albert he can only lend money if it is accompanied by a pledge. Eventually the Jew suggests using an apothecary to poison Albert’s father in order to receive an early inheritance. Albert throws the Jew out of the house, but not before extracting funds from the Jew. Scene II begins with Albert’s father, the Baron in his cellar vault discussing his fortune and future with his treasure. The Baron shares his fears of betrayal as well as his pleasure from his own wealth and success. The final scene involves Albert, the Duke, and the Baron. Albert and the Duke make an arrangement against the Baron and immediately upon the Baron’s arrival, Albert moves into hiding. The Baron expresses his concern that Albert has intent to murder him. Albert rushes out to deny these claims of murderous conviction, only to be challenged to a duel by his own father. Albert takes his leave and almost immediately the Baron chokes and dies.


Shows the final scene where the Baron is killed. This is an interesting portrayal that does not appear to follow the written English translation by Svetlana Evdokimova too closely.

The Life of Pushkin

Alexander Pushkin, the Golden Age author, is recognized as Russia's greatest poet and the founder of Russian modern literature. Known for his distinct rhythmical pattern he pioneered in his work, Pushkin was the first poet to use vernacular speech in his writing, blending together Old Slavonic with Russian vernacular. He drew his inspiration for his writings from Byron, Goethe, Voltaire and Shakespeare, drawing on their characters and humor and then appropriating them within a distinct Russian context (Liukkonen). Born June 6, 1799 in Moscow, Pushkin began his education at home. From the start Pushkin's interests within school lay specifically with French and Russian literature, and he published his first poem at the age of fourteen (Jacobs). He later attended the prestigious school for writers, the Imperial Lyceum, where he gained much of his inspiration from his fellow classmates, notably poets Baratynsky and Delvig. It was here that he began working on his first narrative poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila--a type of fantasy fable.

In 1820 he was exiled to southern Russia because of his political ideas, namely because of his poem "Ode to Liberty." He was later transferred to his mother's estate in northern Russia, where he wrote Boris Godunov and began working on his masterpiece Eugene Onegin (note drawing of Pushkin with Onegin, sketched by Pushkin) (Jacobs). The Decemberist Revolt of 1825 effected the writing of Pushkin. Below is an example of this with Pushkin's poem Arion, published 1827.

We were a crowd inside the boat 
Some of us trimmed the sails, 
While others gamely plunged 
The mighty oars into the deep. While in the calm, 
Our skillful helmsman, leaning to the wheel, 
Steered the craft without a word;
And I - abrim with carefree hope -  
I sang to all the crew....A sudden gust 
Then roared, and swept the ocean's breast . . . 
The helmsman and the crew were lost! 
And I alone, mysterious bard, 
Was tossed upon the stormy shore 
And sang my anthems as before 
While spreading out my sodden robe 
To dry upon a sunny cliff.

In 183o Pushkin wrote and published his four play series, The Little Tragedies--a compelling and genius compilation of theatrical works, yet incredibly complicated and complex in their staging and production. In 1837, Pushkin was severely injured and later died from a duel with George d'Anthès, a man who had made sexual advances towards his wife Nathalie. Pushkin was survived by three children, some 800 lyrics, and over a dozen narrative poems in his short 37 years (Jacobs).

Just for fun, we have included a fun little video that reminded us of filmmaker and animator Yuri Norstein. Can you find the reference to one of Pushkin's famous works?