Imprisoned in marital bliss: anxiety as influence in Pushkin’s “Mistress into Maid” and “The Blizzard”

ABSTRACT

Composed during Aleksandr Pushkin’s first Boldino Autumn, the most productive literary period of the poet’s career, “Mistress into Maid” and “The Blizzard” treat the issues of love and marriage, which were at the forefront of his consciousness. This article considers why Pushkin reframed his Tatiana and Eugene in two comic, quasi-sentimental adventure stories at the very time when he was preparing for his upcoming wedding. Through close reading of literary texts and careful analysis of Pushkin’s letters and autobiographical prose from the period, the author shows that Pushkin provides each of the characters in his love stories with various facets of his own personality. Thus, the sudden and unlikely endings so attacked by critics represent the author’s process of utilizing various literary devices and plots to work through his own anxieties about his upcoming marriage.

RÉSUMÉ

Les nouvelles « La Demoiselle paysanne » et « La Tempête de neige », écrites par Alexandre Pouchkine pendant le premier Automne de Boldino, la période littéraire la plus productive de sa carrière, traitent de l’amour et du mariage, les questions qui le préoccupaient alors principalement. L’article examine les raisons pour lesquelles le poète a repensé son Eugène et sa Tatiana dans deux nouvelles d’aventures humoristiques et quasi sentimentales au moment où il faisait les préparatifs de son mariage imminent. Par une lecture attentive des textes littéraires et une analyse approfondie des lettres et de la prose autobiographique écrites pendante cette période, l’auteure montre comment Pouchkine attribue divers éléments de sa propre personnalité à chacun des personnages dans ses nouvelles sentimentales. Les dénouements soudains et peu plausibles qui ont été maintes fois critiqués illustrent en fait la maniére dont Pouchkine combine plusieurs procédés et intrigues littéraires afin d’aborder ses propres inquiétudes concernant son mariage.

KEYWORDS:

• Aleksandr Pushkin
• The Tales of Belkin
• Boldino Autumn
• characterization
• Pygmalion myth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For reception history, see Izmailov, “Khudozhestvennaia proza Pushkina,” 460, 463, 466; Iakubovich, “Povesti Belkina,” 137; Gukasova, Povesti Belkina, 8; and Bayley, Pushkin, 307.

2. Lerner, Proza Pushkina, 33; Debreczeny, Other Pushkin, 85–87. Translations from the Russian are my own, unless otherwise noted. See also Gershenzon, Mudrost′ Pushkina, 134; Lednicki, “Bits of Table Talk,” 110; and Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 87.

3. Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 233; Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 61; Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 16; Markovich, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 87.

4. Lednicki, “Prose of Pushkin: Part II,” 382–83; Shmid, “‘Niskhozhdenie’ Pushkina k proze,” 232.

5. Debreczeny, Other Pushkin, 4–5.

6. In naming characters, this article will follow the naming conventions in the tales. Lizaveta Grigor′evna is referred to almost exclusively as Liza, in analogy with Karamzin’s Poor Liza.

7. Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 12.

8. Vinogradov, Stil′ Pushkina, 553.

9. On Pushkin’s style of portraiture, see Shmid, “‘Niskhozhdenie’ Pushkina k proze,” 233; Shmid, Proza Pushkina, 21, 25; Shustrova, “O psikhologicheskom raskritii kharakterov,” 192; Stepanov, Proza Pushkina, 152, 158, 163, 165, 180–81; and Petrunina, Proza Pushkina, 145. On portraiture in The Tales of Belkin, see Bayley, Pushkin, 312; Lednicki, “Prose of Pushkin: Part I,” 120; Lednicki, “Bits of Table Talk,” 113, 131–32; and Eikhenbaum, O literature, 345.

10. See Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 23, 26; Shmid, Proza Pushkina, 240, 252; Vinogradov, Stil′ Pushkina, 550; Kodjak, Pushkin’s I. P. Belkin, 64; Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 13, 15; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 13; Gukasova, Povesti Belkina, 69; and Stepanov, Proza Pushkina, 156.

11. See Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 241–45, 248–49, 256–88; Iskoz [Dolinin], “Povesti Belkina,” 194–95; Gershenzon, Mudrost′ Pushkina, 134–35; Al′tman, “Baryshnia-Krest′ianka,” 790; Gukasova, Povesti Belkina, 71; Slonimskii, “O Povestiakh Belkina,” 169, 174; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 10; Debreczeny, Other Pushkin, 86; Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 10–11; Lednicki, “Bits of Table Talk,” 130–31; and Povolotskaia, “‘Metel′’: Kolliziia i smysl,” 155–56.

12. See Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 63, 65; and Iakubovich, “Povesti Belkina,” 135–36, 147.

13. Iskoz [Dolinin], “Povesti Belkina,” 194.

14. See Lezhnev, Pushkin’s Prose, 128, 162, 168, 172–73; and Slonimskii, “O Povestiakh Belkina,” 166.

15. On Tatiana, see: Hasty, Pushkin’s Tatiana, 33, 39, 44–46, 93, 96, 102, 104–05, 131, 135, 170, 176, 179, 205; Emerson, “Tatiana,” 14, 19.

16. Debreczeny, Other Pushkin, 85–87.

17. Bayley, Pushkin, 5.

18. See Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 36–37; Eikhenbaum, O literature, 344; Kodjak, Pushkin’s I. P. Belkin, 62–63; and Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 9.

19. Vinogradov, Stil′ Pushkina, 540; Sidiakov, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 66; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 14.

20. Iakubovich, “Povesti Belkina,” 146; Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 23–25; Al′tman, “Baryshnia-Krest’ianka,” 786–88; Shmid, Proza Pushkina, 241–48.

21. Lednicki, “Prose of Pushkin: Part I,” 117 (emphasis in original).

22. Shmid, Proza Pushkina, 76, 79–81, 87; Markovich, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 64, 66, 78; Bayley, Pushkin, 5–6; Petrunina, Proza Pushkina, 140; Struve, “Walter Scott and Russia,” 403; Greene, “Pushkin and Sir Walter Scott,” 211; Berkovskii, “O ‘Povestiakh Belkina’,” 257.

23. Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 33–34; Sidiakov, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 71.

24. Shmid, Proza Pushkina, 227–28; Shmid, “‘Niskhozhdenie’ Pushkina k proze,” 235–36. On Pushkin’s avoidance of moralistic literary forms, see Sidiakov, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 73; and Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 8.

25. Lednicki, in “Prose of Pushkin: Part II,” 382–83, describes the plot of Eugene Onegin in the following way: “A loves B, but B does not love A; B falls in love with A when A can no longer love B.”

26. Lednicki, in “Bits of Table Talk,” 131–32.

27. See Iskoz [Dolinin], “Povesti Belkina,” 185; Uzin, O Povestiakh Belkina, 18; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 11; Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 71; Kodjak, Pushkin’s I. P. Belkin, 63–64; Bethea, Realizing Metaphors, 39; and Arkhangel′skii, Geroi Pushkina, 29.

28. See Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 10; and Akhmatova, “Neizdannye zametki,” 164.

29. Berkovskii calls “Mistress into Maid” a “natural epilogue” to the tales, although for quite a different reason. Berkovskii, “O ‘Povestiakh Belkina’,” 341. See also Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 13.

30. Uzin, O Povestiakh Belkina, 47; Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 12.

31. Gershenzon, Mudrost′ Pushkina, 128–37, especially 131.

32. Izmailov, “Khudozhestvennaia proza Pushkina,” 468; Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 32–33.

33. Jakobson, Puškin and His Sculptural Myth, 3.

34. Ibid., 41, 8. See also ibid., 10–11, 22–23.

35. Bethea, Realizing Metaphors, 10–19.

36. Jakobson, Puškin and His Sculptural Myth, 22.

37. Akhmatova, “Neizdannye zametki,” 163. See also Uzin, O Povestiakh Belkina, 67.

38. For alternate readings, see Makogonenko, Tvorchestvo A. S. Pushkina, 145; and Kats, Odinnadtsat′ voprosov k Pushkinu, 116–39.

39. Certain scholars argue that central themes unite all works of the first Boldino Autumn: Iskoz [Dolinin], “Povesti Belkina,” 185–86; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 8; Debreczeny, Other Pushkin, 136. Others contend that the Little Tragedies and The Tales of Belkin represent opposite tendencies: Bayley, Pushkin, 306; Brun-Zejmis, “Malen′kie tragedii and Povesti Belkina”; and Glukhov, “Povesti Belkina i Malen′kie Tragedii,” 154–55, 157.

40. Letter to Pletnev, 9 September 1830, 429–30. All of Pushkin’s letters cited here are from Pushkin, The Letters of Alexander Pushkin, trans. J. Thomas Shaw (Bloomington, 1963) and will be quoted in Shaw’s translation.

41. Iskoz [Dolinin], “Povesti Belkina,” 184.

42. Grossman, Pushkin, 357.

43. Uzin, O Povestiakh Belkina, 48.

44. Letter to Pletnev, 9 September 1830, 430.

45. Akhmatova, “Neizdannye zametki,” 163; Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 12; Gippius, “Povesti Belkina,” 27.

46. Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 16.

47. Letter to Pletnev, 31 August 1830, 427.

48. Quotations from Pushkin’s prose are from Pushkin, Alexander Pushkin: Complete Prose Fiction, or CPF. When words from the original are needed, they are from Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh, or PSS, followed by the volume and page numbers. CPF, 107.

49. CPF, 457. See also Levkovich, Avtobiograficheskaia proza.

50. CPF, 115.

51. Letter to Pletnev, 29 September 1830, 431.

52. CPF, 455; PSS VI, 388–89.

53. CPF, 118; PSS VI, 114.

54. Ibid.

55. CPF, 112: PSS VI, 107.

56. CPF, 114; PSS VI, 109.

57. Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 15.

58. CPF, 119; PSS VI, 114.

59. CPF, 114; PSS VI, 110.

60. See this comparison in Lednicki, “Prose of Pushkin: Part I,” 115; and Al′tman, “Baryshnia-Krest′ianka,” 788–89.

61. CPF, 119; PSS VI, 115.

62. Jakobson, in Puškin and His Sculptural Myth, 31–40, contrasts free rest with forced immobility.

63. Letter to Krivtsov, 10 February 1831, 458–59.

64. Letter to N. I. Goncharova, 5 April 1830, 405–06.

65. Bethea, Realizing Metaphors, 111.

66. CPF, 456–57.

67. Akhmatova, “Neizdannye zametki,” 167.

68. CPF, 455; PSS VI, 388.

69. Bethea explains Pushkin’s Pygmalion myth in this way: “he must ‘plead’ […] with his cool Madonna to love him back [… his behavior] must be oriented toward the other. […] as the poet brings his Hermione to life, he also turns himself to stone […] the hardness of death itself.” Bethea, Realizing Metaphors, 16, emphasis in original.

70. PSS VIII, 53, my translation.

71. CPF, 76; PSS VI, 70–71. See also Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 72–73.

72. Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 236, 291; Gerzhenzon, Mudrost′ Pushkina, 135–36; Lednicki, “Bits of Table Talk,” 112, 130; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 12; Povolotskaia, “‘Metel′’: Kolliziia i smysl,” 160; Shmid, Proza Pushkina, 66; Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 73–75, 81, 87.

73. Gershenzon, Mudrost′ Pushkina, 135–37; Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 75; Markovich, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 73, 75–76; Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 11–12; Lednicki, “Bits of Table Talk,” 112; Berkovskii, “O ‘Povestiakh Belkina’,” 294.

74. See Bethea and Davydov, “Pushkin’s Saturnine Cupid,” 12.

75. Letter to N. N. Goncharova, 30 September 1830, 432.

76. Ibid.

77. Letter to N. I. Goncharova, 5 April 1830, 406.

78. Letter to N. N. Goncharova, 11 October 1830, 433.

79. Letter to N. N. Goncharova, late August 1830, 426.

80. CPF, 82.

81. Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 233; Annenkov, Materialy dlia biografi, 315; Gershenzon, Mudrost′ Pushkina, 137; Matveyev, “Narrative Self-Determination,” 12.

82. Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 286–87; Lednicki, “Bits of Table Talk,” 111.

83. Iskoz [Dolinin], “Povesti Belkina,” 195.

84. CPF, 84; PSS VI, 78.

85. Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 246, 254.

86. Ibid., 267; Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 85.

87. Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 84–85.

88. CPF, 85; PSS VI, 79.

89. CPF, 454; PSS VI, 388.

90. Letter to Krivtsov, 10 February 1831, 459.

91. CPF, 86; letter to Benkendorf, 18 May 1830, in Modzalevskii, “Pushkin pod tainym nadzorom,” 125–26.

92. Markovich, “‘Povesti Belkina’,” 76–77; Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 263–68, 271–75; Kodjak, Pushkin’s I. P. Belkin, 64; Petrunina, Proza Pushkina, 145.

93. Cherniaev, “Metel′,” 256; Kats, Odinnadtsat′ voprosov k Pushkinu, 134–35.

94. Shmid, “Nevezuchii zhenikh,” 87.

95. CPF, 119. In contrast, Kats argues that “The Blizzard” has a dark, open ending, which he opposes to the “doubtlessly happy” ending of “Mistress into Maid.” Kats, Odinnadtsat′ voprosov k Pushkinu, 136–39.

96. Markova-Vinogradskaia [Kern], “Del′vig i Pushkin,” 150.

97. Pigarev, “Vstrecha s Pushkinym,” 153.

98. Bartenev, Rasskazy o Pushkine, 53.

99. Vul′f, “Dnevnik,” 124.

100. Akhmatova, “Neizdannye zametki,” 162.

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Amanda Murphy

Amanda Murphy is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at Nazarbayev University. Her interests include nineteenth-century Russian literature, semiotics, dress and material culture, religious history, imperial myth-making, and historical prose. She is preparing a book manuscript on the Catherine Myth in Russian literature and culture.