Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Oxford World's Classics)

by Alexander Pushkin

  dedication: The dedication was originally addressed to Pushkin’s friend (and the first publisher of Eugene Onegin) P. A. Pletnyov (1792–1862). In later editions, the piece was retained as a kind of preface, but without the inscription to Pletnyov.

  Chapter 1

  My uncle, man of firm convictions: the novel’s opening words mimic a line from the fable The Ass and the Peasant by Ivan Krylov (1796–1844): ‘An ass of most sincere convictions.’

  Ludmila’s and Ruslán’s adherents: the author’s address to his readers and references to other of his writings are devices used throughout the novel. The allusion here is to Pushkin’s first major work, the mock epic Ruslán and Ludmila.

  noxious in the north: ‘Written in Bessarabia’ (Pushkin’s note). A lightly veiled allusion to the poet’s troubles with the court: a few poems of liberal sentiment and some caustic epigrams had incurred the wrath of the emperor, and as a consequence, in May 1820, Pushkin was required to leave St Petersburg for an unspecified term of exile in the south of Russia. He would not return to the capital for more than six years.

  Letny Park: the Summer Garden, a public park situated along the embankment of the Neva and adorned with shade trees and the statues of Greek deities.

  (9): here and elsewhere, numbers in parentheses indicate stanzas omitted by Pushkin in the published text.

  Faublas: the hero of a novel by the French writer Louvet de Couvrai (1760–97). Abetted in the seduction of other men’s wives by a rakish count, Faublas, it turns out, has seduced his accomplice’s bride as well.

  Bolivár. ‘Hat à la Bolivar’ (Pushkin’s note). A wide-brimmed black top hat, named after the South American liberator, which was fashionable in both Paris and St Petersburg in the 1820s.

  Bréguet: an elegant pocket-watch made by the celebrated French watchmaker, Abraham Louis Bréguet (1747–1823).

  Talon’s: Talon was a well-known French restaurateur in St Petersburg.

  Kavérin: Pyotr Kaverin (1794–1855) was a hussar, man about town, and friend of Pushkin.

  comet wine: champagne from the year of the comet (1811), a year of especially good vintage.

  Strasbourg pie: a rich pastry made with goose liver, for which the French city is famous.

  Cleopatra … Phèdre… Moïna: the heroines of various plays, operas, or ballets performed in St Petersburg at the time. The Cleopatra that Pushkin had in mind is uncertain; the Phèdre was either Racine’s tragedy or an opera based on it; Moïna is the heroine of Ozerov’s tragedy, Fingal.

  Enchanted land!… perfected: the stanza evokes the Russian theatre around the turn of the century, when for the most part imitations of Corneille, Racine, and Molière prevailed. D. Fonvizin (1745–92), the most noteworthy of the playwrights mentioned, was the author of two successful satires, The Minor and The Brigadier. Y. Knyazhnin (1742–91), V. Ozerov (1769–1816), and P. Katenin (1792–1852) wrote Frenchified tragedies; A. Shakhovskoy (1777–1846) wrote equally derivative comedies. E. Semyonova (1786–1849) was an accomplished Shakespearian actress who performed in Russian dramas as well. Charles-Louis Didelot (1767–1837), French ballet master and choreographer, was associated with the St Petersburg ballet.

  Istómina: A. I. Istomina (1799–1848). A celebrated ballerina who was a pupil of Didelot. She danced in ballets that were based on works by Pushkin, and early in her career the poet had courted her.

  Grimm: Frédéric Melchior Grimm (1723–1807). French encyclopedist. In a note to these lines Pushkin quotes from Rousseau’s Confessions on the encounter between the two men and then comments: ‘Grimm was ahead of his age: nowadays, all over enlightened Europe, people clean their nails with a special brush.’

  Chadáyev: the manuscript provides evidence for the name given here. Pyotr Chadayev (1793–1856) was a friend of the poet and a brilliant personality. Both fop and philosopher, he was the author of the famous Lettres philosophiques, of which only one was published in Russia during his lifetime. His work helped to precipitate, through its critique of Russian history, the great debate between the Westernizer and Slavophile camps of Russian thought. For the expression of his ideas, Chadayev was officially declared insane, although he continued to take an active part in Moscow social life.

  Say or Bentham: the French economist Jean Baptiste Say (1767–1832) and the English jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) were much discussed at the time in progressive circles.

  Capricious… spleen: in a note to the stanza Pushkin comments archly: ‘The whole of this ironical stanza is nothing but a subtle compliment to our fair compatriots. Thus Boileau, under the guise of reproach, eulogizes Louis XIV. Our ladies combine enlightenment with amiability, and strict purity of morals with that Oriental charm which so captivated Mme. de Staël.’ See Dix ans d’exil.

  As… himself: a mocking allusion to M. Muravyov (1757–1807) and his lyric poem ‘To the Goddess of the Neva’.

  Brenta: the river that flows into the Adriatic near Venice.

  Albion’s great and haughty lyre: the reference is to Byron’s poetry.

  shore: ‘Written in Odessa’ (Pushkin’s note).

  my Africa’s warm sky: ‘The author, on his mother’s side, is of African descent. His great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Annibal, in his eighth year was abducted from the coast of Africa and taken to Constantinople. The Russian envoy, after rescuing him, sent him as a gift to Peter the Great, who had him baptized in Vilno.’ Thus Pushkin begins a rather lengthy note on the life of his African ancestor. The young man was subsequently sent abroad by Peter to study fortification and military mining. After a sojourn of some seven years in France, he was recalled to the service in Russia, where he had a rather chequered career as a military engineer. He was eventually made a general by the empress Elizabeth and died in retirement, in 1781, at nearly 90 years of age, on one of the estates granted him by the crown. The third of his eleven children (by a second wife) was the poet’s maternal grandfather.

  sang the Salghir captives’ praises: the references are to the heroines in two of Pushkin’s narrative poems: the Circassian girl in The Caucausian Captive and the harem girls in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. The Salghir is a river near Bakhchisarai, a Tartar town and former residence of the Crimean khans.

  Chapter 2

  O rus! … O Rus’!: the epigraph employs a pun. The first ‘O rus!’ (Horace, Satires 2. 6) means ‘O countryside!’; the second invokes the old and lyrical name for ‘Russia’.

  corvée … rate: the corvée was the unpaid labour that a serf was required to provide to his master. Onegin, an enlightened squire, has decided to improve the lot of his peasants by asking instead for a small payment.

  Mason: since Masonic organizations at the time were centres of liberal thought, a provincial landowner would have considered the member of such a group a revolutionary.

  That there exists… redeeming grace: the last five lines of this stanza, which give Lensky’s views on the mission of poets, were omitted by Pushkin from the final text, presumably because he anticipated the censor’s objection.

  passions: the dangerous emotions or ‘passions’ refer here not only to sensual love but also to feelings of enmity, jealousy, and avarice.

  that name: ‘The most euphonious Greek names, such as, for example, Agathon, Philetus, Theodora, Thecla, and so forth, are used with us only among the common people’ (Pushkin’s note).

  shaved the shirkers: serfs who were chosen by their owners for army service had their forelocks shaved for easy recognition.

  At Trinity … deserved: lines 5–11 were omitted in all editions during Pushkin’s lifetime. On Trinity Day, the Sunday after Whitsunday, people often brought a birch-tree branch or a bouquet of field flowers to church. The tradition in some regions, according to Vladimir Nabokov, called for the worshipper to shed as many tears for his sins as there were dewdrops on the branch he carried.

  Ochákov decoration: a medal that commemorated the taking of the Black Sea fortress of Ochakov in 1788, during the Turkish
campaign.

  Chapter 3

  Elle … amoureuse: ‘She was a girl, she was in love.’

  A drink … coach: in most editions the final six lines of this stanza are omitted.

  Svetlana: the reference is to the heroine of a ballad by Vasily Zhukovsky (1783–1852), a talented poet and Pushkin’s friend.

  Julíe Wolrnár: the heroine in a novel by Rousseau, Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse.

  Malék-Adhél: the hero of Mathilde, a novel by Mme Cottin (I773-! 807).

  de Linár: a character in the novel Valérie by Baroness von Krüdener (1764–1807).

  Clarissa: the heroine of Richardson’s Clarissa.

  Julia: again, the character from Rousseau’s Julie.

  Delphine: the heroine in a novel of the same name by Mme de Staël.

  The Vampire … Sbogar: the Vampire is presumably from the 1819 tale of that name by John Polidori, Byron’s physician. Melmoth is the hero of Melmoth the Wanderer, published in 1820 by Charles Robert Maturin. The Corsair is the poem by Byron. The legend of the wandering Jew was widely used by writers in the Romantic era. Jean Sbogar is the title of a short French novel published in 1818 by Charles Nodier. These are all works of Pushkin’s own time, whereas Tatyana’s reading comes from an earlier generation; only in Chapter Seven will she discover Byron in Onegin’s abandoned library.

  The Good Samaritan: a Moscow literary journal, actually called the Well-intentioned (Blagonamerennyj).

  Bogdanóvich: I. F. Bogdanóvich (1743–1803): a minor poet and translator from the French. His narrative poem Dushen ’ka (Little Psyche) exerted some influence on the young Pushkin.

  Parny: Evariste-Désiré de Parny (1753 1814). French poet famed for the elegance of his love poetry. His Poésies érotiques influenced Russian poetry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

  Bard of The Feasts: the reference is to Evgeny Baratynsky (1800–44), a friend of Pushkin’s and a fellow poet. His elegy The Feasts was written in 1820, while its author was serving in the ranks in Finland, after having been expelled from military school for theft. Set in a gloomy Finland, his poem evokes a happier time with poet-friends in the Petersburg of 1819.

  Freischütz: the reference is to the overture from Der Freischütz, an opera by Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826).

  Chapter 4

  La morale … choses: ‘Morality is in the nature of things.’

  Tolstoy: Count F. P. Tolstoy (1783–1873): a well known and fashionable artist.

  No madrigals… flows: the octave of this stanza exhibits a rare divergence from the usual pattern: like the Italian sonnet, it employs but two rhymes in the eight lines and thus provides a rather pleasing accompaniment to a discussion of poetic form.

  Yazýkov: N. M. Yazýkov (1803–46): a minor poet and acquaintance of Pushkin.

  trumpet, mask, and dagger: emblems of the classical drama.

  odes: for Pushkin the term ‘ode’ suggested bombastic and heavy pieces in the eighteenth-century Russian manner; his own preference was clearly for the romantic ‘elegy’, by which term he would have described any short contemplative lyric. The mock debate conducted in this and the following stanza reflects an actual dispute between the ‘archaists’ and ‘modernists’ of Pushkin’s day.

  The Other: the allusion is to Chuzhoi tolk (Another’s View), a satire on the writers of odes by I. Dmitriev (1760–1837).

  36: this stanza appeared only in the separate edition of Chapters 4 and 5.

  Gulnare’s proud singer: Byron, in The Corsair.

  Pradt: Dominique de Pradt (1759–1837): a prolific French political writer.

  Hippocrene: a fountain or spring on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, sacred in Greek mythology to the Muses.

  At: or Ay; a champagne whose name derives from a town in the Marne district of northern France.

  entre chien et loup: dusk, or the time of day ‘between the dog and the wolf (i.e., when the shepherd has difficulty in distinguishing between the two).

  Lafontaine’s: August Lafontaine (1758–1851). A German writer, author of numerous novels on family life.

  Chapter 5

  Another bard… shade: ‘See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky’ (Pushkin’s note). Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky (1792–1878), poet, critic, and wit, was a close friend of Pushkin. He appears in the novel by name in Chapter 7, stanza 49.

  bard of Finland’s maid divine!: ‘See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky’s Eda’ (Pushkin’s note).

  ‘The Kitty’s Song’: at Yuletide, and especially on Twelfth Night, several traditions for fortune-telling were observed by women and girls (particularly among the common people). The shapes taken by molten wax or lead when submerged in water were read as prophetic, and so-called ‘dish divining songs’ were sung. In the latter case, girls would place their rings in a covered bowl of water before singing carols. At the end of each song, a ring was drawn at random, and its owner would deduce some portent or meaning from the kind of song just sung. Tatyana’s song on this occasion is a portent of death, whereas ‘The Kitty’s Song’, which girls prefer, is a prophecy of marriage.

  trains a mirror… nearer:, training a mirror on the moon was another method of divination, the reflected face of the man-in-the-moon supposedly revealing to the enquiring maiden her future husband.

  ‘Agafon’: by asking the name of the first stranger she encountered, a girl hoped to learn the name of her future fiancé. The name that Tatyana hears, Agafon (from the Greek ‘Agathon’), sounds particularly rustic and old-fashioned, and therefore comic, to a Russian ear.

  conjure all night through: another device for discovering one’s husband-to-be: conjuring up his spirit at an all-night vigil.

  Svetlana: the heroine of Zhukovsky’s ballad. In the poem, when Svetlana conjures her absent lover, he carries her off to his grave. Fortunately, Svetlana’s terrors remain only a dream.

  Lel: supposedly a pagan Slavic deity of love; more likely (according to Nabokov) merely derived from the chanted refrain of old songs (e.g., the ay lyuli lyuli of many Russian folk-songs).

  Martýn Zadéck: the name, evidently a fabrication, appears as the author of several collections of prophecies and dream interpretations, published both in Russia and in Germany.

  Malvina: a novel by Mme Cottin (1773–1807).

  Two Petriads: heroic poems on Peter the Great, several of which were in circulation at the time.

  Marmontel: Jean François Marmontel (1723–99), French encyclopedist and short-story writer.

  But lo!… the sun: ‘A parody of some well-known lines by Lomonosov’ (Puskin’s note). The crimson hand of Aurora (deriving of course from the Homeric ‘rosy-fingered dawn’) appears in several odes by M. V. Lomonosov (1711–65), scientist and poet and the founder of Moscow University.

  Buyánov: Mr Rowdy, the hero of a popular and racy poem by Pushkin’s uncle, Vasily Pushkin; thus, playfully, Pushkin’s cousin. The names given to the other guests are also traditionally comic ones: Pustyakov (Trifle), Gvozdin (Bash), Skotinin (Brute), Petushkov (Rooster).

  Réveillezv-ous, belle endormie: Awaken, sleeping beauty.

  Tatyaná: Triquet pronounces Tatyana’s name in the French manner, with the stress on the last syllable.

  a lavish pie: the Russian pirog, a meat- or cabbage-pie.

  Zizí: Evpraksia Wulf (1809–83), who as a young girl lived near Pushkin’s family estate at Mikhailovskoe and with whom he flirted when confined there in 1824. Pushkin became her lover briefly in 1829. Writing to a friend in 1836 from Mikhailovskoe on his last visit there, he recalls her as ‘a formerly half-ethereal maiden, now a well-fed wife, big with child for the fifth time’.