The Captain's Daughter

by Alexander Pushkin

  An hour or so passed by. From the village came the sound of drunken singing. Our guards grew jealous and took it out on us by cursing us and trying to scare us with talk of torture and death. We waited for Shvabrin to carry out his threats. Eventually there was a commotion in the yard and we heard Shvabrin’s voice: “Well, have you made up your minds? Will you surrender of your own free will?”

  No one said a word in reply. After a few minutes Shvabrin ordered his men to bring straw. It was not long before the dark barn was lit by blazing flames and smoke was curling through the cracks in the door. Then Maria Ivanovna came up to me, took me by the hand and said in a low voice, “Pyotr Andreich! Why should I be the death of you and your parents? Let me out. Shvabrin will listen to me.”

  “Never!” I cried angrily. “Don’t you know what will happen to you?”

  “I will not survive dishonor,” she replied calmly. “But I may be able to save my deliverer. I may be able to save the family that has shown such magnanimity towards a poor orphan. Farewell, Andrey Petrovich! Farewell, Avdotya Vasilyevna! You have been more than benefactors to me. Give me your blessing. Farewell to you too, Pyotr Andreich! You must believe that I . . . that . . .” She burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. By then I was nearly losing my mind. Mother was weeping too.

  “Enough of that, Maria Ivanovna,” said Father. “We’re not handing you over to those brigands—what do you take us for? Sit down and be quiet. If die we must, then we die together. Listen! What are they saying out there?”

  “Do you surrender?” Shvabrin was shouting. “Can’t you see? Another five minutes and you’ll be ashes.”

  “No, you traitor!” Father replied firmly, “we do not surrender.”

  His wrinkled face was remarkably animated; beneath their grey brows, his eyes were shining. Turning to me, he said, “Now!”

  He opened the door. Flames leaped in and twisted along the beams and the dry moss stuffed into the gaps between them. Father fired his pistol and strode over the blazing threshold, shouting, “Follow me!” I took both Mother and Maria Ivanovna by the hand and led them quickly out into the open. Not far from the entrance Shvabrin lay stretched out on the ground, shot by my aged father. The rest of the mob had fled, but they quickly recovered their spirits and began to press round us again. I laid about me with my sword but a well-aimed brick struck me full in the chest. I fell to the ground and briefly lost consciousness. When I came to, I saw Shvabrin sitting on the blood-soaked grass with my family standing before him.

  I was being supported under each arm. We were surrounded by a crowd of peasants, Cossacks, and Bashkirs. Shvabrin was very pale. He was pressing one hand to his wounded side. On his face was a look of mingled pain and rage. He slowly lifted his head, looked at me, and said in a weak, indistinct voice, “Hang him . . . Hang them all . . . All except her.”

  Men seized us and dragged us off with loud cries. But all of a sudden they fled: Zurin had ridden in through the gate, followed by an entire squadron of Hussars with drawn swords.

  The rebels ran every which way; the Hussars pursued them, cutting down some with their swords and taking others prisoner. Zurin leaped from his horse, bowed to Father and Mother, and warmly clasped my hand. “Just in time!” he said. “Ah! So this is your betrothed!” Maria Ivanovna blushed to the roots of her hair. Outwardly calm, though clearly moved, Father went up to Zurin and thanked him. Mother embraced him and called him our Angel of Deliverance. “Welcome to our home!” said Father, leading the way towards the main house.

  As we passed Shvabrin, Zurin stopped. “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s their ringleader, the rabble-rouser himself,” my father replied, his proud tone betraying the old soldier in him. “The Lord helped my feeble old hand to punish a young villain and avenge my son’s wound.”

  “It’s Shvabrin,” I told Zurin.

  “Shvabrin!” said Zurin. “Delighted to make your acquaintance! Take him away, Hussars, and tell the surgeon to bind his wound and care for him as if he were the apple of his eye. He must at all costs be presented to the Secret Commission in Kazan. He is one of the chief criminals and his evidence will be important.”

  Shvabrin opened his eyes wearily. There was nothing to be seen on his face but physical pain. Some Hussars bore him away on a cloak.

  We entered the house. I looked around, deeply moved as I remembered my childhood years. Nothing had changed; everything was as it always had been. Shvabrin had not allowed it to be plundered; however low he had sunk, it appeared that base rapacity still filled him with a certain disgust. The servants met us in the anteroom. They had not taken part in the rebellion and our release filled them with joy. Savelich was triumphant. During the commotion surrounding the first attack on the granary, he had run to the stables, saddled Shvabrin’s horse, quietly led it outside, and galloped off to the ferry unnoticed. There he found the regiment, which had just crossed the Volga and was resting on the bank. Hearing that we were in grave danger, Zurin had given the order to mount, led his Hussars forward at the gallop and, thank God, had reached us in time.

  Zurin insisted that the head of Andryushka the clerk be impaled on a pike and exhibited for a few hours beside the tavern.

  The Hussars returned from their pursuit of the rebels with a number of prisoners. They locked them up in the granary where we had withstood the memorable siege.

  We all went to our rooms. The old people needed rest. Not having slept at all during the previous night, I too threw myself on my bed and fell fast asleep.

  In the evening we all gathered in the drawing room, around the samovar, and began talking merrily about the dangers we had escaped. Maria Ivanovna was pouring out the tea; I sat down beside her and from then on paid no attention to anyone else. My parents appeared glad to see the tenderness between us. That evening still lives in my memory. I was happy, entirely happy—and how many such moments are there in our poor human lives?

  The following morning my father was told that the peasants had assembled in front of the house to ask his pardon. He went out onto the porch. Seeing him, they fell to their knees.

  “Well, you fools,” he said, “why did you take it into your heads to rebel?”

  “We have done wrong, Master. Forgive us,” they said with one voice.

  “Yes, you’ve done wrong—and you’ve done wrong to yourselves. Well, I forgive you out of joy—because of the joy God has granted me by returning to me my son, Pyotr Andreich.”

  “We did wrong. We know we did wrong.”

  “All right then—the sword spares the bowed head. But God has sent us fine weather. It’s time to be bringing the hay in—and what have you fools been doing the last three days? Elder, put everyone to haymaking. And be sure, you redheaded rascal, that the hay’s all stacked by St. Ilya’s Day.[5] Off with you now!”

  The peasants bowed again and went off to work in their master’s fields as if nothing had happened.

  Shvabrin’s wound turned out not to be mortal. He was sent under guard to Kazan. From my window I saw him being carried out to a cart. Our eyes met. He lowered his head and I quickly moved away from the window. I did not want to seem to be gloating over an enemy’s misfortune and humiliation.

  Zurin had to proceed further. I resolved to go with him, in spite of my desire to spend more time in the midst of my family. On the eve of our departure I went to my parents and, in accordance with the custom of those times, bowed down to the ground before them and asked for their blessing on my marriage to Maria Ivanovna. They raised me to my feet and, with tears of joy, agreed to bless us. Then I brought Maria Ivanovna to them; she was all pale and trembling. They gave us their blessing. I will not try to describe my emotions. He who has been in my position will understand without further explanation; as for he who has not, I can only pity him and advise him, before it is too late, to fall in love and receive his parents’ blessing.

  The regiment was ready the following day. Zurin took leave of my family. We were all certain that the campaign
would soon be over; I was hoping to be a married man within the month. As we parted, Maria Ivanovna kissed me in front of everyone. I mounted my horse. Savelich, once again, accompanied me. The regiment set off.

  For as long as I could, I looked back at the manor house I was leaving for a second time. I was troubled by a black foreboding. Someone was whispering to me that my troubles were not yet over. My heart sensed that another storm was on the way.

  I shall not relate the details of this campaign and the end of the war. We passed through villages pillaged by the rebels and had no choice but to take from the inhabitants what little they had managed to save.

  No one knew whom to obey. Law and order broke down; landowners hid in forests. Bands of brigands plundered far and wide; commanding officers of independent detachments sent after Pugachov—who was by then retreating towards Astrakhan—punished both guilty and innocent as the whim took them. The conflagration covered a vast area; throughout it conditions were terrible. God spare us from Russian revolt, senseless merciless Russian revolt. Those who plot impossible, sudden revolutions in Russia are either young and ignorant of our people or else hard-hearted men who care not a straw about either their own lives or the lives of others.

  Pugachov was in flight, pursued by General Michelsohn. Soon we heard that Pugachov had been routed. Finally, Zurin received news of his capture and, at the same time, orders to march no further. At last I could go home to my parents. I was overjoyed, but my joy was darkened by a strange feeling.

  NOTE ON NAMES

  A RUSSIAN has three names: a Christian name, a patronymic (derived from the Christian name of the father), and a family name. Thus Ivan Kuzmich Mironov is the son of a man whose first name is Kuzma, and Maria Ivanovna is his daughter. The first name and patronymic, used together, are the normal polite way of addressing or referring to a person; the family name, in this case “Mironov” (“Mironova” in the case of a woman), is used less often. Married or older peasants are often addressed and referred to by the patronymic alone or by a slightly abbreviated form of it. Thus Arkhip Savelievich is usually referred to simply as Savelich—and he does not have a family name at all. Close friends or relatives usually address each other by one of the many diminutive forms of their first names. Masha, for example, is an affectionate form of Maria, just as Petrusha is an affectionate form of Pyotr. Palasha and Palashka are both diminutive forms of Pelageya; Palasha, however, sounds more dignified. While her owners are alive, Pushkin consistently refers to her as Palashka. Once her owners have been killed and she has begun to lead an independent—and rather courageous—life of her own, she is referred to as Palasha. There is a similar distinction with regard to Yemelka and Yemelya; both are diminutives of Yemelyan, but the former sounds more familiar.

  —R.C.

  PUSHKIN AND HISTORY

  Pugachov was the leader of the greatest of Russia’s popular rebellions (1773–75). The historian Geoffrey Hosking writes, “Like its predecessors, the rebellion broke out in the southeastern borderlands, where Old Believers and other fugitives from imperial authority rubbed shoulders with non-Russian steppe tribesmen and where Cossacks defended the tsar’s fortresses and stockades while continuing to dream of the brigands’ license which had been their birthright.”[1] It was Pugachov’s ability to appeal to all these groups of people that made this rebellion, at least temporarily, so successful. Not only was he a Cossack by birth but he also converted to the Old Belief, that is, he became one of the Old Believers who refused to accept a reform of traditional ecclesiastical ritual carried out in the 1650s. This reform had caused a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church and created a huge pool of people who were alienated from the monarchy, the official church, and all forms of government. In addition, Pugachov offered whatever was necessary to attract the support of other tribes and peoples, promising, for example, to return their traditional grazing lands to the Bashkirs and Kalmyks. Lastly, he assumed the title of Emperor Peter III, the grandson of Peter the Great and husband of Catherine the Great. Peter III had aroused hopes of reform among the peasantry and had eased the persecution of Old Believers. After reigning for less than a year, however, he had abdicated and then been strangled by one of Catherine’s admirers. Pugachov claimed that Peter III had not been murdered and that he himself was Peter III; he had “meekly accepted his dethronement and then, after visiting Constantinople and Jerusalem, had wandered sadly among his people, learning of their sufferings and grievances.”[2]

  Pugachov’s eloquent manifesto of July 1774 was calculated to appeal to every disaffected group:

  By God’s grace, We, Peter III, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias . . . with royal and fatherly charity grant by this our personal ukaz to all who were previously peasants and subjects of the (landlords) to be true and loyal servants of our throne, and we reward them with the ancient cross and prayer, with bearded heads, with liberty and freedom and to be for ever Cossacks, demanding neither recruit enlistment, poll tax, nor other money dues, and we award them the ownership of the land, of forests, hay meadows, and fishing grounds, and with salt lakes, without purchase and without dues in money or in kind, and we release peasants and all the people from the taxes and burdens which were previously imposed by the wicked nobles and mercenary urban judges.[3]

  The rebellion can best be seen as an embodiment of widespread resentment against what Hosking refers to as “an increasingly centralized, rational, secular, and impersonal state.”[4] The reasons for its eventual failure are inseparable from the reasons for its temporary success. Pugachov’s forces—though they numbered at least ten thousand at the height of the rebellion—were simply no match for the better-organized army at the service of this centralized and impersonal state.

  The study of history was of ever-growing importance to Pushkin. From the mid-1820s he collected material about Peter the Great and his times, and during his last years he was working on a monograph about him that he hoped would be his chef d’oeuvre; sadly, he died without finishing it and much of the manuscript was lost. Peter the Great was also a central figure in Pushkin’s unfinished novel, The Blackamoor of Peter the Great, and the inspiration behind the narrative poems Poltava and The Bronze Horseman. When making a copy for himself of one of Peter the Great’s letters, Pushkin imitated his handwriting—as if hoping this would help him to enter into Peter’s thinking.

  The Pugachov Rebellion was another of Pushkin’s central interests during the 1830s. In August 1833, wanting to speak to eyewitnesses, he traveled to Kazan, Orenburg, and the Urals. In a letter to his wife he wrote, “In the village of Berdy, where Pugachov was encamped for six months, I had une bonne fortune—I found a seventy-five-year-old Cossack woman who remembers that time as well as you and I remember 1830. I was in no hurry to get away from her, and I beg your pardon for not even thinking of you. Now I hope to bring a lot of things into order, get a lot written, and then come to you with the booty.”[5] This Cossack woman also sang three songs about Pugachov and showed Pushkin the hut where Pugachov had lived. On his way back to Petersburg, in early October, Pushkin stopped at Boldino and—amongst other things—completed a second draft of A History of Pugachov.

  To Pushkin’s apparent surprise, Tsar Nicholas I not only granted him permission to publish this but even offered him a government loan to cover the costs. He insisted on only a few changes; the most important was that the title be changed from A History of Pugachov, which the Tsar thought endowed the rebel leader with too much dignity, to A History of the Pugachov Rebellion. In December 1834, the book was published in two volumes: the first was Pushkin’s narrative; the second, a collection of source materials. Pushkin also wrote some confidential notes for the Tsar alone. These are startlingly forthright: “All the common people were with Pugachov. The clergy sympathized—not only village priests and monks but even archimandrites and bishops. Only the nobility was openly on the side of the government. [. . .] If we analyze the measures taken by Pugachov and his comrades, we must admit that that they chose the
most reliable and effective means of achieving their goals. The government, in contrast, acted weakly, slowly and mistakenly.” Pushkin is almost as critical in the published text. In his account of the siege of Orenburg he writes, “There were up to 3,000 troops and 70 cannon in the city. Resources of this nature made it not only possible, but also a matter of simple military duty, to destroy the rebels. Unfortunately, there was not one of the military commanders who knew his business. Taking fright from the very beginning, they gave Pugachov time to gather his strength and deprived themselves of the resources necessary for offensive action.”[6]

  I know of no other nineteenth-century historical work even remotely similar to A History of Pugachov. It is based on archival research and firsthand interviews, and Pushkin makes no attempt to impose coherence on the chaos of events. The number of accounts of minor battles and random movements of small detachments of troops is difficult to take in. Rather than frustrating a reader, however, this has the effect of reinforcing their trust in Pushkin’s honesty. In any case, Pushkin forestalls criticism by quoting, as an epigraph, a striking passage by Platon Lyubarsky, a senior cleric who had already written about the rebellion:

  To render a proper account of all the designs and adventures of this impostor would, it seems, be almost impossible not only for a historian of average abilities but even for the most excellent one, because all of this impostor’s undertakings depended not on rational considerations or military precepts but on daring, happenstance, and luck. For this reason (I think) Pugachov himself would not only be unable to recount all the details of these undertakings but would not even be aware of a considerable portion of them, since they were initiated not just by him directly but by many of his unbridled daredevil accomplices, in several locations at once.[7]