No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Puškin and the Rumanian Historical Legend
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2018
Extract
Puškin's interest in folklore has long been noted in scholarly Puškin literature. Like all great writers, Puškin turned to the sources of the people's creative genius, from which he drew a wealth of inexhaustible material for his inspiration. His first poem, “Ruslan and Ljudmila,” based on Russian folk tales, struck a severe blow to Russian classicism and provoked a polemic of major proportions in the Russian literary world. The critics did not spare the young poet but attacked him mercilessly. Puškin, however, never deviated from his chosen path, and throughout his stormy life he carried with him his interest in the people's creative genius, to all the places to which his “unfriendly fate” flung him.
One such place, the scene of Puškin's exile for his freedom-loving ideas, for his “Ode to Freedom,” and for his satire on General Arakčeev, was Bessarabia, which only eight years before had been annexed to Russia and therefore still retained all its national oriental color.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1948
References
1 Doquie et Trajan; legende populaire des Roumains… (Jassy, 1840).
2 Vestnik Evropy, No. 23-24, (1830). The author of this legend is a Russian literary scholar of Moldavian origin who was the first to introduce to Russian literature the Ukrainian philosopher Grigory Skovoroda. He also became known in Rumanian literature through translations of several of his works made by his son, Bogdan P. Hasdeu, who migrated from Bessarabia to Rumania and there became a famous Rumanian writer and scholar.
3 Jorga, N., Istoria literaturii române din secolul al XIX—lea (Bucharest, 1907), II, 41.Google Scholar
4 Russkij arkhiv (1866), pp. 1410-11.
5 Ibid., p. 1411, n.
6 Svirin, N., “Puškin i fol'klor narodov SSSR,” Zvezda, No. 1 (1937), pp. 147-70.Google Scholar
7 E. Dvoichenko, “A. S. Puşkin şi literatura română,” Nadejdea, No. 1 (Bucharest, 1932) pp. 7-8; also Puşkin şi România (Bucharest, 1937), “Incepturile nuvelei istorice romănesti in ruseste,” Viata Româneasca, Nos. 4-5 (1937), pp. 31-34; and E. Dwojczenko, “Zycie i twórczość Puszkina w Besarabii,” reprint from Puszkin 1837-1937 (Craków, 1939).
8 Svirin, op. cit., p. 160.
9 Dacia Lietară (Jassy, 1840), p. 479; I. Vulcan, Panteonul Romđn (Budapest, 1869), pp. 133-36; L. Marian, Domnia Arnăutului (Kishineff, 1930), pp. 4-5; E. Dvoicenco, A. Hasdeu şi literatura romăna populară (Vălenii de Munte, 1936).
10 Columna hi Traian, No. 16ff, 1871; Marian, op. cit.
11 Thus, in the archives of the Moldavian boyar, Tudor Balş, I discovered a rough draft of a complaint of Balš to General Inzov against Puškin, which I published in Revuu des Etudes Slaves, XVIII (1938), 73-75. Russian Puškin scholars knew about Tudor Balš's quarrel with Puškin only from stories of Puškin's Bessarabian contemporaries. The victim's own testimony was therefore particularly interesting.