2 Cf. Tretiak, Józef, Mickiewicz i Puszkin (Warsaw, E. Wende i Sp., 1906), pp. 227–231.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Komarovich, V. L., “K voprosu o zhanre Puteshestviya v Arzrum ,” Pushkin, Ak. Nauk SSSR, Inst. Lit., VremennikPushk. Kom., in, Moscow-Leningrad, 1937, pp. 326–339 Google Scholar, especially pp. 334-335. To be precise I must add that in my time I cited Tretiak's conclusions, discussing the totality of the mutual relations of Pushkin and Mickiewicz, but I cited those conclusions laying stress on the fact that I myself did not much agree with them and earlier Spasowicz also was opposed to them. Cf. W. Lednicki: Aleksander Puszkin, nakladem Krakowskiej Spó1ki Wydawniczej (Kraków, 1926), p. 179, as well as Spasowicz, W.: Pisma, v (Petersburg, 1892), 351–353.Google Scholar It may be observed that some attention to the relationship of that passage from the Journey to Erzurum which interests us and Chateaubriand has also been paid by Annenkov, cf. Pushkin, Vengerov's ed., VI, 458.

4 Pushkin, “Biblioteka velikikh pisateleĭ,” ed. by Prof. S. A. Vengerov (Petrograd, 1915), vi, 457-464.

5 Tsyavlovskiĭ and Oksman believe that the poet started to write his poem at the end of the year 1829, cf. A. S. Pushkin, polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ v shesti tomakh, ed. Yu. G. Oksman i M. A. Tsyavlovskiĭ, Moskow-Leningrad: Academia, 1936, II, 593.

6 Cf. S. Bondi, Novye stranitsy Pushkina, izd. “Mir”, 1931, pp. 53-73.

7 This poem is published now, in recent Soviet editions, under the title of Tazit.

8 Abram, Efros, Risunki Poeta, Moscow, Academia, 1933, pp. 270, 272, 426–427, 299, and 444.Google Scholar I did not possess Efros's publication, nor did our libraries possess it, and by this time the book is a bibliographical rarity, so it was no easy thing to acquire it. But concerning the “portrait” of Mickiewicz and the fact that this portrait is on the manuscript of Ghasub I learned from the publication of A. P. Coleman, “Pushkin and Mickiewicz,” in Centennial Essays for Pushkin, ed. by S. H. Cross and E. J. Simmons, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1937; on p. 84 Coleman writes: “Pushkin loved Mickiewicz … and his image continued to haunt him, even after Mickiewicz had been gone from Russia a number of months. This we know from the sketch Pushkin drew of himself and Mickiewicz in his manuscript of Ghasub toward the end of 1829 or early in 1830 … “ There follows a note to Efros's publication. By the time I received that American jubilee-book devoted to Pushkin my tract on Ghasubwas in principle complete. I need not express the joy with which I read the above-quoted sentence of Coleman: for me it had a significance of the first order. The intelligence of a “portrait” of Mickiewicz just on the extant manuscript of Ghasub confirmed, on the other hand, my conjecture as to the polemical content (on this later) of Ghasub; it became the last and quite unexpected brick for my construction. I was amused by the knowledge that neither Efros nor Coleman was aware how great a joy they had furnished me. For that sketch was not, either for Efros or for Coleman, what it is for me — Efros was simply describing the drawings of Pushkin, while Coleman cited the fact as proof of Pushkin's sympathy for Mickiewicz. But for me this is a “sign,” a special sign, which may be the clue to the final solution of the “secret” of Ghasub! So I thought, Coleman in hand, and thence searched with great impatience for Efros's book, which various bookshops began to seek at my request. At last the longed-for moment arrived! I saw the sketch and read the comments of Efros … Does this sketch really depict Mickiewicz? Experts in Pushkin's technique of drawing, experts in the epoch, biographers, etc., have all acknowledged it to be a “ portrait” of Mickiewicz. I believe that it is such — I can add nothing more on this subject.

9 The poet copied in his own hand Oleszkiewicz in its entirety, Do Przyjaciół Moskali (To My Muscovite Friends) in its entirety, and a part of Pomnik Piotra Wielkigo (The Monument of Peter the Great), ending with the words “Staje na brzegu i w górę się wspina” (“Stands on the shore and rears toward the mountain”). Cf. Rukoyu Pushkina, 1935, pp. 535-544 and 549-551 — Commentary by M. Tsyavlovskiĭ.

10 Cf. Jeźdiec Miedziany Puszkina, etc. preklad J. Tuwima, Studium W. Lednickiego, Inst. Wyd. “Biblioteka Polska,” Warsaw, 1937.

11 Cf. Pushkin, ed. Prof. S. A. Vengerov, etc., IV, pp. xlix-1; cf. also V. Lednicki, “Mickiewiczen Russie,” La Revue de V Université de Bruxelles, 1929.

If we are to believe the Notes of A. O. Smirnova, Pushkin asserted that Konrad Wallenrod contained passages of surpassing charm and three whole poems in one, which in fact determined its defects: a lyric poem above love, an epic poem about hatred and vengeance and a poem about a Moor … He thought that the best parts were “the love-poem, the lyrical part, the descriptions of Lithuania, the descriptions of nature” … The structure of the poem seemed to him to be not very felicitous: “the connection is insufficient between the problems under the author's scrutiny, in particular one perceives a lack of clarity … Each particular portion of itself is very fine, hence all the more perceptible is the lack of harmony”… (Cf. Zapiski A. O. Smirnovoĭ, izd.red. zhurn. Severnyĭ vestnik, St. Petersburg, 1892, I-II , 282-283). The following remark is characteristic: “ … The third poem will be misunderstood, and that is the trouble with it: as if it were propagating hatred and vengeance, while in reality — to be sure, not fully stated — it propagates the opposite; I said as much to Mickiewicz, I said that he had not sufficiently worked out that part … ” (ibid.).

12 Aronson, M.: “Konrad Wallenrod i Poltava,” in Pushkin-Vremennik (Moscow-Leningrad, 1936), II, 43–56.Google Scholar

13 Let me take this occasion to recall to the reader the old but excellent study of Spasowicz on Konrad Wallenrod, which successfully defends the moral tone of the poem. Cf. Pisma, I, pp. 325-362.

14 Cf. Jeździec Miedziany, etc. as above, p. 49.

15 “ … The threads are confused on the loom; … yesterday I perceived that she had sewn the flower of the roses with green — and the leaves with red silk … “ See op. cit., beginning of Chapters XIV and XV. This came to the notice of Wł. Spasowicz; see Lednicki, W., Aleksander Puszkin (Krakow, 1926), pp. 179–180.Google Scholar

16 See Lednicki, W., Aleksander Puszkin, above', p. 179 and PrzyjacieleMoskale (Kraków, 1935), p. 171.Google Scholar

17 “But in the first encounter, scarce had I glimpsed the banners, scarce had I heard the battle-songs of my people, ere I sprang over to our men, bringing behind me the old man. Like a falcon torn from the nest and nourished in a cage, though the hunters drive him senseless by cruel torture and let him go to do battle against his brother-falcons — as soon as he rises into the clouds, as soon as he casts an eye over the measureless vastness of his blue fatherland, breathes free air, hears the rustle of his wings — go home, hunter, do not wait with your cage for the falcon!”

18 See Pushkin, ed. Vengerov, III, 493—494: “ … The days pass by. In Ghasub's heart grief has fallen asleep. But Tazit keeps ever his old wildness. In his native village he is as a foreigner; the whole day long, alone in the mountains he keeps silent and roams about, thus in the hut the captive stag yet ever looks toward the wood, ever goes off into the wild. He loves to slip along the steep crags, to crawl the flinty path, marking the strong-voiced storm and the waves howling in the depths. Sometimes till late in the night he sits sorrowful on the heights, fixing his eyes motionlessly in the distance, leaning his head on his hand. What thoughts pass in him? What is he then awaiting? Whither do his young dreams lead him from the distant world? How can we know? Impenetrable is the depth of men's hearts! In his dreams the youth is self-willed as the wind in the sky … ”

19 Whence, — thought Kiejstut, — has come the change in my daughter, where is her former gaiety, where her childish pastimes? On the feast-day all the maidens go to amuse themselves with the dance — she sits alone or talks with Walter. Busy on weekdays with needle or loom — the needle falls from her hands, the threads are tangled on the loom, she herself knows not what she is doing — everyone tells me so — ”

20 “ … Ah, there was a time! … The youth kept secret tryst with her in the mountains; he drank the fire of a sweet poison in her confusion, her brief speech, her downcast eyes, when from the threshold of her home she looked out on the road while talking with her sportive playmate and suddenly sat down and grew pale, and, answering, did not look at her, and flamed up like the dawn; or when she stood by the waters that flowed from the stony peaks, and stayed a long while filling her wrought metal pitcher with the ringing wave …” See ibid., p. 496.

21 “ … The lad is good, valiant, book-learned as a priest … Must I drive him from home? He also is needed for Lithuania … It were best that he draw up in battle-array, best that he heap up the ramparts, get ready the thunderous weapons, be for me an army in himself … Go, Walter, be my son-in-law and fight for Lithuania! … ”

22 “I shall not give my eaglet to a man who dares not go to battle, who cannot avenge his brother, who is timid even before a slave, who has been driven out and cursed by his father … ” — Ibid.

23 It is characteristic that at this very time Pushkin was particularly absorbed in themes with a religious content. Certainly within a short time after Ghasub, perhaps even at the same time, and almost directly before the writing of his famous poem to Mickiewicz (“On mezhdu nami zhil … “ — “He lived among us … ”), the poet wrote a splendid, strikingly moving, and impressively dignified poem under the title of The Pilgrim (Strannik — “Odnazhdy, stranstvuya sredi doliny dikoĭ”). One might say this beautiful work was a poetic story avant la lettre about Tolstoy, about the tragedy of his life, about his flight from Yasnaya Polyana … The story is, indeed, in the manner of the legend of Saint Alexis … It was not an original work — Pushkin had translated and adapted here the famous Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan. But Pushkin's wonderful and forceful version is really inspired and beautiful and attests the depth of his feeling for religious themes. We ought also to recollect Roderigo (1833). In 1835 the poet jotted down a text that he had found in the Chetyi-Minei containing the life of John Kushchnik, which is strikingly similar to certain fragments of The Pilgrim; very probably this similarity arrested the poet's attention. Finally, it was in those very years that Pushkin really introduced into his poetry motifs with a religious coloring although their presence can indeed be noted even earlier. See Pushkin, ed. Vengerov, vi, 464-466.

24 See Pushkin, ed. Vengerov, vi, 459-460.

25 Ibid.

26 See Ibid., pp. 457-458.

27 Op. cit., p. 18.

28 See ibid ., p. 426.

29 “How can one know — And the soul, like the kite of the desert, is free — How can one know — but gloomy Ghasub … is dissatisfied with him — his son. — What then, he says, me, the old man …”.

30 “Thus in the hut the captive stag”.

31 “In his dreams the youth is self-willed as the wind in the sky”.

32 See Spasowicz, Wlodzimierz, Pisma, ut supra, pp. 352–353.Google Scholar

33 It would seem that Pushkin's self-portrait was drawn after the portrait of Mickiewicz. See Efros, , op. cit., p. 299 Google Scholar.