The Queen Of Spades, Pushkin Essay, Research Paper

Russians hold Pushkin in such high esteem that his place in Russian literature can reasonably be compared to that of Shakespeare in the literatures of the English language. Pushkin’s literary genius seems to have been almost limitless: in addition to the long narrative and short lyric poems for which he is most famous, he also wrote short stories, stage plays and literary criticism. His letters are among the best in European literature. Many literary historians believe that the legend which suggests the composer Salieri may have murdered Mozart can be traced back to Pushkin’s play MOZART AND SALIERI. (It is worth noting here that the great nineteenth-century Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakov, wrote a successful opera based on the play in 1898; and both the play and the opera would later inspire the British playwright Peter Shaffer in writing AMADEUS). Pushkin’s short stories–such as “The Queen of Spades,” upon which Tchaikovsky based his great opera “Pique Dame”–are the first great works of prose fiction in Russian to stand the test of time unshakably. His most widely read masterpiece, the verse novel EUGENE ONEGIN, is the source for another magnificent Tchaikovsky opera by the same name, as well as several ballets. Sections of this epic Romantic poem in novel form are still memorized by Russian and other Eastern European school children as reverently as if they were verses from the Bible.

Pushkin was the first giant to achieve a truly international status while working in the Russian language, although, ironically, his great fame beyond the borders of Russia came later than that of others who would follow him: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Turgenev, all of whom owed a great deal to Pushkin as their literary progenitor, were known throughout Europe and America before Pushkin’s works were widely read outside the Russian homeland. He is at once the most cosmopolitan and the most Russian of Russian authors. He was intensely aware of western literature, music, architecture and painting, and believed that everything Russian–including literature–should be measured by European standards. As if he had been dreamed up by Peter the Great, the indefatigable eighteenth-century Russian Czar who almost literally dragged Russia into the life of eighteenth-century Europe by building St. Petersburg, Pushkin passionately believed that Russia had to think of itself as part of Europe and not part of Asia.

II

In considering Pushkin’s short life as a narrative, it should first be said that his was even more turbulent and romantic than that of his fictional creation, Eugene Onegin. Pushkin was born in Moscow on May 26, 1799. Although his family had lost most of their political influence by the time of Pushkin’s birth, he was immensely proud of the fact that they had been part of Russian nobility for six hundred years. He was educated by a series of private tutors and governesses and had access to his father’s large library of seventeenth and eighteenth-century French classics. In 1811 the young poet was enrolled in the first class of the lyceum at Tsarkoe-Selo, the site of the Czar’s summer palace. This special school had recently been established by Alexander I (the Czar who defeated Napoleon) to educate the sons of prominent families with an eye to grooming them for important government posts. His early poems won prizes and earned him a reputation that made him the literary darling of St. Petersburg. Between 1817 and 1820, however, his poems began to express liberal views that finally brought about an interrogation by the Petersburg governor-general. Pushkin was sent into a kind of dignified exile: he was forced to take a position in the foreign affairs service in southern Russia. Through the aid of influential friends, Pushkin was transferred in July 1823 to a post in Odessa, where his literary creativity continued to flourish. After quarreling with his superior, Count Vorontsov, who was demanding that Pushkin actually perform the duties of his office–hitherto they had only been nominal–Pushkin angrily attempted to resign from the civil service. At more or less the same time, postal inspectors intercepted a letter in which Pushkin had commented that atheism was the most reasonable belief for anyone to hold with regard to the eternal question of the existence of some divinity. In Russia at this time, an offense against religion was considered an offense against the state. Pushkin was dismissed from public service in disgrace and exiled to his mother’s estate in Mikhaylovskoe, in northern Russia. His immediate family happened to be in residence at the time of Pushkin’s arrival there, and violent arguments arose when Pushkin learned that his own father had agreed to provide surveillance over his son on behalf of the government. From August 1824 to August 1826, Pushkin lived and wrote at Mikhaylovskoe under the watchful eyes of a variety of persons who had accepted the charge to report back to the government on his doings. Among them were not only his own father, but also the father superior of the nearby Svyatye Gory Monastery. While his confinement in this rural place was no doubt unpleasant for Pushkin, his literary output continued unabated.

The matter of Pushkin’s standing with the Russian government was to grow even worse. In 1825 a group of idealistic young Russian military officers, who had been influenced by the spread of democratic ideas following the French Revolution, attempted to overthrow the Czar Nicholas I in the earliest days of his reign. History has come to call this dramatic episode in Russian history “the Decembrist Rebellion.” After the uprising was successfully put down by the new government of Nicholas I, Pushkin found himself in grave trouble with the Czar’s secret police because, although he had not been part of the plot (probably on account of the great distance between Mikhaylovskoe and the capital), most of the young officers arrested were discovered to have in their possession copies of Pushkin’s early political poems. In the late spring of 1826 Pushkin began the process of extricating himself from this predicament by sending the Czar a letter, petitioning to be released from political exile. On September 4th, Pushkin was ordered to Moscow where Nicholas I was preparing for his coronation. On September 8th, still filthy from the long overland journey, Pushkin arrived for his meeting with the Czar. He left the interview ecstatic, believing he had been given an ideal arrangement: his sovereign had agreed to act as his personal censor. Soon, the poet was again writing and talking about controversial themes. Consequently, to no one’s surprise except apparently his own, Pushkin was scolded by the chief of gendarmes, Count Benkendorf, who informed him in no uncertain terms that he was not free to travel, participate in the writing or editing of any journals, or to publish anything without the explicit permission of the government.

Pushkin chose to spend the years 1826 through 1831, looking for a suitable wife and preparing to settle down. He ended up courting at length a girl who was considered by Russian high society to be the most beautiful young woman in Russia, Natalia Goncharov. The two married in 1831, in Moscow. In May they moved to Tsarkoe Selo, and in October to Petersburg, where they remained for the rest of the poet’s life. The final years of the poet’s life were lived in Petersburg society, which his vivacious, fun-loving wife very much enjoyed. In 1834, Madame Pushkin met a handsome young French royalist migr named Georges D’Anthes-Heeckeren, the adopted son of the Dutch ambassador to Russia. The arrogant young Frenchman pursued Natalia Pushkin for two years; by the autumn of 1836, his conduct had become so outrageous that all of Petersburg was talking about it. On November 4th, Pushkin received copies of a “certificate of the Order of Cuckolds and Historiographer of the Order.” Although most literary historians now believe that Madame Pushkin was innocent of any actual wrong doing, her husband, nevertheless, felt the need to take action. There was a kind of stay-of-execution when friends managed to convince Pushkin that the Frenchman was actually in love with his wife’s younger sister. The Frenchman even married the girl. But soon after his wedding, D’Anthes began to pursue Natalia Pushkin with even more brazen ardor. The duel finally took place on January 27, 1837. D’Anthes fired first, mortally wounding his opponent. Pushkin managed to get off one shot, slightly wounding the Frenchman. Pushkin died two days later, on January 29th, at the age of thirty-eight. His demise echoed hauntingly the tragic duel scene from EUGENE ONEGIN.

III

“The Queen of Spades” is the most popular, the most puzzling, and the most aesthetically successful of all Pushkin’s prose tales. Critics disagree widely and vehemently over whether or not the fantastic element in the story should be interpreted as “real.” While the story makes use of mystical themes, readers can be sure that it is firmly grounded in sound human psychology. It is a story of man’s character becoming his fate, of calculation triumphing over imagination and feeling with the protagonist’s destruction the ultimate result. Hermann’s overweening desire to rise in the world by acquiring money causes him to lose not only his winnings and his patrimony, but finally his mind. Unlike Macbeth, who also sells his soul out of greedy ambition, Hermann is never able to enjoy his success. (It is interesting to note that Hermann has called the countess “old witch” to her face. In MACBETH, the witches predict not only the protagonist’s speedy rise to power but also his guilt, his insomnia, and his catastrophic fall.) Through natural or supernatural means, depending on how one chooses to interpret the episode featuring the ghostly visitor to Hermann’s rooms, Hermann shows the wrong card at the crucial moment, and the moment of victory is turned horrifically into the moment of defeat.