An Unknown Letter from Natalya Pushkina to Nicholas I

This article relays information about documents found in the archive of the Ministry of Finance of Russia, providing evidence about Pushkin widowʼs address to the Tsar for financial help. In addition to this, there is an unpublished letter dated July 1844 that includes her request to preserve the pension she had previously been assigned. The result of this letter was an unknown decree, which revised the size of the poetʼs childrenʼs pension.

“Upon The Hills Of Georgia”. (From manuscript to poetics)

This paper focuses on the history of the poem “Upon The Hills Of Georgia” (1829) published in “Severnye Tsvety” in 1831 under the title “A Fragment”. The published version did not include stanzas from the original drafts, which alluded to memories of a past love. According to the traditional interpretation offered by S. M. Bondi, Pushkin, who in 1831 was soon to be married, did not want to publish lines devoted to another woman. However, in 2004, the Institute of Russian Literature received an autographic manuscript of the poem identical to the published version, but written in the autumn or winter of 1829, at a point when Pushkin as yet had no aspirations to marry Goncharova. The omission of stanzas from the rough copy can be explained not by biographical circumstances but by a change in artistic intention: the poem — originally conceived as an elegy, with typical elegiac motives of memories — later acquires a different generic form, which harkens back to A. Chenierʼs “fragments”, and is closer in its poetics to anthological lyrical poetry and ancient epigrams.

An African Episode in the Life of Pushkinʼs Granddaughter (E. A. Rosen-Meyer)

The circumstances and reasons for the departure of A. Pushkinʼs granddaughter, Elena Alexandrovna Rosen-Meyer, from Turkey to South Africa in 1923, after failed negotiations over the sale of Pushkinʼs personal items to A. Onegin and M. Gofman, remain unclear. Documents at the National Archives of South Africa, as well as materials, testimonies and literature related to persons involved in this move indicate that the Rosen-Meyer family went to Africa on the recommendation of Pushkinʼs descendants in England. Thanks to the connections of Sir Harold Wernher and his wife, Anastasia Mikhailovna (Lady Zia), a job was found for Rosen-Meyerʼs husband with a business associate of the Wernher family. A prominent South African businessman and member of parliament, Sir Abe Bailey, off ered a position to N. Rosen-Meyer at his estate “Rust-en-Vrede” in the town of Muizenberg; Bailey would hold informal meetings with leading South African politicians and public fi gures at Rust-enVrede. The Pushkin items seen by Gofman at Rosen-Meyerʼs home before her departure from Turkey remained in her possession on her return from South Africa in the late 1920s.

“The Feast of Peter the First”: The last “lesson to the Tsar”?

This article analyzes the historical, literary, and political context of Pushkinʼs poem “The Feast of Peter the First”, as well as its reception by authorities. The author investigates the sources which guided the poet (most importantly, Derzhavinʼs complimentary and ironic odes). The author shows that the poem was not yet another “freedom-loving” ideological text, which criticizes the regime or opposes two tsars in order to demonstrate the superiority of the fi rst. On the contrary, it served as a “dedication” of the magazine “Sovremennik” to Tsar Nicholas I. The poem inspired the tsar to organize a naval parade on July 3 1836, featuring “Peterʼs little boat”. The symbolic projection of Pushkinʼs text was embodied in the reality of the celebration, and it turned out to be the only “lesson” that the authorities would extract from the poetʼs text.