Russian Literature LIII (2003) 63-76 www.elsevier.com/locate/ruslit North-Holland

L O V I N G P E T E R S B U R G : A N O T E O N V J A Z E M S K I J ' S N O T E O N P U S K I N ' S N O T E S O N V J A Z E M S K I J A N D

M I C K I E W I C Z IN ' T H E B R O N Z E H O R S E M A N '

C A T H E R I N E O ' N E I L

Petersburg offers a complex combination of images in almost all descriptions found in literary and travelers' accounts. A discussion of Petersburg invari- ably includes an account of the city's creator, Peter I, a juxtaposition (often) with Moscow, an image of man's supremacy over nature and a description of the cosmopolitan constitution of its inhabitants. Petersburg as Russia's con- cession to cosmopolitan Europe is inevitably ambiguous in the heart of in- habitants and visitors alike, constantly inviting as it does the comparison with other capitals and evoking perforce a profound contrast: more European than Moscow in the eyes of Russians, it is still a manifestation of autocratic rule foreign to any other city in Europe. It is not surprising therefore that Peters- burg becomes for Russians a useful springboard for the complex of am- biguous associations Russians have for their country.

In 'The Bronze Horseman' Pu~kin refers once to Vjazemskij and twice to Mickiewicz, thereby drawing on a link of Petersburg motifs in Russian cultural history. To a certain degree, his references to both poets evoke ambi- guity (that is, he polemicizes with them), yet at the same time they draw attention to the fundamentally troubled image Petersburg arouses in most thinking Russians. Pu~kin cites Vjazemskij's poem to Countess Elena Zava- dovskaja in his second footnote to 'The Bronze Horseman', after sixteen lines extolling the wonders of St. Petersburg:

JIIo6nIo Te6~I, HeTpa TBOpenl~e, JIto6JItO TBOH CTpOFIII~, CTpOHHBIH BII]I,

0304-3479/03/$ - see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PII: S0304-3479(02)00167-9

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HeBLI ;IepmaBHoe TeqeHl~e, BeperoBofi ee rpaHnT, TBonx orpa~I y3op uyryHnbI~, TBOh'X 3a)IyMqItBblX Hoqe~ glpo3pannbi~ cyMpaK, 6neck 6e3nyHn~Ifi, I(orlla ~ B KOMHaTe MOefI

IIr~my, q~Ta10 6e3 naMna)It, L I/I ~CHb~ cr~mr~e rpoMa~ I]yCTbIHH]blX yZHU, H CBeTJm A;IMnpa~xe~cKan Hrna, H, He nycKa~ TbMy ao~nyro Ha 30J/OTble ne6eca, 02[Ha 3ap~I CMeHItTb z~pyryro CHeIIIH% ~aB HoqH HO.rlqaca. (1977, IV: 275) ~

(I love you, Peter's creation, I love your stem and graceful look, the mighty flow of the Neva, her granite banks, the iron pattern of your fences, the transparent dusk of your pensive nights, the moonless light when I write in my room, or read without a lamp, when the sleeping hulks of the empty streets are bright, and the Admiralty spire shines and, not allowing night's gloom in, one dawn rushes to relieve another, having given night a half an hour.)

Pugkin tells his readers after this passage: "see Prince Vjazemskij's poem to Countess Z***" (288). The Vjazemskij poem in question is 'Con- versation of April 7, 1832', printed in the almanac Novosel'e in 1833 with the epigraph "To Countess E.M. Zavadovskaja". The poem, consisting of four- teen quatrains in iambic hexameter (Alexandrine) with a strong caesura after the third foot, was dismissed by Denis Davydov as "a candy-wrapper poem" ("konfetnyj biletec"), unworthy of the pen of his usually witty and irreverent friend. 2 Yet it is a curious declaration of love for the Countess's city, imbued with the ambiguity characteristic of all of Vjazemskij's writings on Peters- burg. The period of the poem's publication coincides with Vjazemskij's partial return to favor at court after a ten-year internal exile following his dis- missal from his post in Warsaw in 1820. Vjazemskij was appointed Minister of Finance in 1831, and in general wrote considerably less verse from this point on. Pu~kin's evocation of this particular poem in 1833, when he was at work on 'The Bronze Horseman' at Boldino, is a compliment to a friend whose work, like his own, had a completely different flavor when it was not intended for publication; indeed, Vjazemskij's best-known poetry of the 1820's was not published until much later and circulated exclusively in manuscript form: 'Indignation' ('Negodovanie', 1820), 'Comparison of Pc-

Vjazemskij's Note on Pugkin's Notes on Vjazemskij and Mickiewicz 65

tersburg with Moscow' ( 'Sravnenie Peterburga s Moskvoj ' , 1812), 'Russian God' ( 'Russkij bog ' , 1828).

From the first stanza o f 'Conversation' we see that Vjazemskij is writing a disclaimer for an offense he has committed in the eyes o f a Peters- burg beauty, Countess Zavadovskaj a:

HeT-HeT, He BepbTe MHe: ~ npe~ c060~ JIyKaBnJ L Kor~Ia z Bac Ha ChOp 6e3yMHO BI~I3t, IBaJI; Barn Ma~, Barn IIeTeprypr nopoqrIn n 6eccsmann, I/I B Bamnx nerecax ~ conmle oTpntia.ri. (1986: 241) 3

(No, no, don't believe me: I was lying to myself when I foolishly started an argument with you. Your May, your Petersburg I sullied and defamed and I denied the sun in your heaven.)

The opening lines evoke not love but a very strong rejection o f Peters- burg, one that has wounded and "deceived" (stanza 2) the poet 's interlocutor. Vjazemskij 's awareness o f his own "cr ime" is expressed in highly exag- gerated terms, where he has the power to blight the sun, to "sully" ("pororil") Petersburg.

It is in the third stanza that we encounter the line Pu~kin alludes to, "I love Petersburg" ("Ja Peterburg ljublju"). In fact Vjazemskij uses this line to open two stanzas in a row, employing one o f his favorite rhetorical devices, anaphora:

It HeTep6ypr ntora~o, c ero Kpacolo CTpOHHOH, C 6JIeCT~HI!4M nOnCOM pOCKOI/IHbIX OCTpOBOB, C npo3pa,~no~ HO~,~O -- ;II-I~ conepHnue~ 6e33no~no~ - I/I c cBeme~ 3eJIeH~o M~a~IbIX ero ca/loB. It HeTep6ypr mo6nio, K ero npncxpacTen nea'y: Tar nb~mno CBeTnTC~ OHO B Bo)Iax HeBb~; Ho 6once Bcero i~aK i~e mO6HTr, noaa2V IIpeKpacHofi po)InHb~, r;Ie IlapCTByeTe B~,~? (241)

(I love Petersburg with its graceful beauty, with its gleaming belt of luxurious islands, with its transparent night - the heatless rival of day - and with the fresh verdure of its gardens. I love Petersburg; I am partial to its summer, so richly does it shine in the Neva's waters. But, most of all, how can a poet not love the land where you reign?)

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Pugkin certainly takes a lot from these passages: he uses some of the same lexical items, "graceful" (Pu~kin: "strojnyj vid"; Vjazemskij: "krasa strojnaja"), "transparent" (Pu~kin: "prozrarnyj sumrak"; Vjazemskij: "pro- zrarnaja nor'"). Both poets evoke the image of a belt, or "girded" city (Pug- kin: "beregovoj granit", Vjazemskij: "pojas roskognych ostrovov"); an af- firmation through negation (Pu~kin: "blesk bezlunnyj"; Vjazemskij: "soper- nica bezznojnaja"); the rivalry of night with day during White Nights (Pug- kin: "odna zarja smenit' druguju spe~it"; Vjazemskij: "nor ' ju - dnja soper- nicej bezznojnoj"). Both passages evoke the Neva (Pugkin: "Nevy der~avnoe teren'e"; Vjazemskij: "v vodach Nevy"). Both poets suggest the image of rule (Pugkin: "der~avnoe", his reference to the Admiralty, the suggestion of soldiers' watch in "zarja smenit' druguju"; Vjazemskij's compliment to the Countess: "gde carstvuete vy"). Moreover, Pugkin's reference to the "golden heavens" ("zolotye nebesa") of night - that is, a gold not caused by the sun - recalls Vjazemskij's elaborate apology in the first stanza of his poem: "In your heavens I denied the sun" ("V vagich nebesach ja solnce otrical"). Finally, both claim a special role for Petersburg for the poet, even if in Vja- zemskij's poem the conceit smacks of an empty compliment: "how can a poet not love the land where you reign?" ("kak ne ljubit' po~tu / Prekrasnoj rodiny, gde carstvuete vy?").

Indeed, the remainder of 'Conversation' is an extravagant compliment in which Vjazemskij equates the city with the woman, granting Petersburg virtues that he claims to find in Countess Zavadovskaja:

17prtpoLlt, I ceBepHo~ nto6ync~ 3ept~a~oM, B Bac YirOrI, tT OH ee BeJmqre, THInrlHy, H ~n3nh UBea2cmyro noel xJIa~HbIM noupblBa~OM, H 3HMy ap~yio, H rpoTKyIO Becny.

(Admiring the mirror of its northern nature, he [the poet] loves in you its grandeur and its silence, and the life that blooms beneath a cold blanket, and the bright winter and the brief spring.)

In 'The Bronze Horseman' Pugkin also follows his profession of love for Petersburg in the summer with an account of her spectacular winter, as if he were following Vjazemskij's lead:

JItO6Ylto 3HMbI TBOel~ :~KeCTOKOI~ HeABIDKHNfi Bo3~yx ~I MOpO3, t3er CaHOK B2On~ HeB~I m;vpoKofi, ~eBnqbrt JImla ~pqe pos, H 6necK, n myM, I~ roBop 6anoB, A a qac rlHpymKn XOJIOCTO.~

Vjazemskij "s Note on Pu~kin's Notes on Vjazemskij and Mickiewicz 67

IiIHrleHfie HeHHCTblX 60KaJIOB

H nyHma rmaMem, rony6o~.

(I love the unmoving air and frost of your cruel winter, the flight of sleds along the Neva, the girls' faces brighter than roses, the light, the noise, the voices at balls, the foaming hiss of glasses at a bachelor's party, and the blue flame of the punch.)

Once again, there are elements common to both poets: a love for a still, "blanket-like", winter, the lexical element for "bright" ("jarkij"). Moreover, the "blue flame" of the punch Pugkin mentions is a fixed epithet in the poetry of the 1810's and 1820's, and Vjazemskij strangely evokes it in his tenth stanza by applying this image to the eyes of Russian ("northern") women ("plamen' goluboj ich devstvennych o6ej").

On the whole, however, Vjazemskij's poem is a stylized, lifeless series of compliments that does not achieve its professed goal of inspiring the reader with admiration for the Countess and, by extension, Russian beauties and Petersburg itself; with all the references to "cold" beauty, "serenity", "purity" and the absence of "poisonous passion", one may only hope that the poem's addressee did not burst into tears upon reading it. What is it that Pugkin found to admire in this poem? Or was he "correcting" it, making the flaws seem more like virtues, celebrating the magnificence of Petersburg and the charms of their former life there, while at the same time acknowledging the more troubling aspects of the capital and the Tsar who created it?

In fact, it would be easy to dismiss Vjazemskij's poem with Davydov, who with reason criticized its lack of passion and its saccharine tone, were it not for the fact that it does resonate so well with Pugkin's Introduction to 'The Bronze Horseman'. As a negative compliment which Vjazemskij surely made deliberately, the poem seems to be a wily ruse whereby the poet excuses himself from saying anything positive about Petersburg while pre- tending to do so the whole time.

Indeed, Vjazemskij's phrase "I love Petersburg" to which Pugkin alludes in 'The Bronze Horseman' recalls an earlier poem by Vjazemskij, one that never was published until 1969 and yet which was clearly known to Pugkin, since it was found on a manuscript with a poem copied in Pu~kin's own hand. 4 This earlier poem is worth juxtaposing with the later 'Con- versation' and 'The Bronze Horseman':

It IIeTep6ypra He nlO6a~o, Ho Bac C Tpy)IOM ~i rloKI,I)lato,

}Ipy3b~, c KOTOpI, IMrI ryn~IO I/I, TaK CKa.3aTB, HeMHO)KKO HbIO.

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It YIeTep6ypra He JItO6JIIO, Ho B Bac He Btt~y IIeTep6ypra, H IIIKyprma, HeB~,~ JIHKypra, ~[ B Bac cJ~e;IOB He npH3HarO.

fl IIewep6ypra He nro6nio, 3Aecb ~U3Hb Ha BaxT-napa)I noxo~a, H )KH3Hb HaT/IHyTa KaK Kox<a Ha 6apa6aHe.

(I don't like Petersburg but it's with difficulty that I leave you, my friends, with whom I stroll and at times, so to speak, have a drink. I don't like Petersburg but I don't see Petersburg in you, and I see no trace in you of Skurin, our Lycurgus of the Neva. 5 I don't like Petersburg, life here is like a naval parade, and life is stretched like the skin on a dram.)

The poem rather strikingly echoes the later poem, 'Conversation', in several ways: most obviously, the repeated opening line "I don't like Peters- burg" is a direct inversion of the later "I love Petersburg", the line with which Vjazemskij begins his third and fourth stanzas in 'Conversation'. The opposition continues with the contrast between the entirely negative image of martial Petersburg in the earlier poem ("life is like a naval parade", "skin on a drum", the references to Lycurgus and Skurin) and the ostensibly positive image of Zavadovskaj a's "reign" in the luxuriant city in 'Conversation'. Most striking of all is the contrast between the poet's addressees, expressed by the phrase "in you" ("v vas") which Vjazemskij uses in both poems; whereas in 'Conversation' Vjazemskij equates the city with his interlocutor, asserting his admiration for it through his admiration for her ("in you he [the poet] loves..."), in the earlier poem he is addressing his friends and assuring them they bear no resemblance to Petersburg whatsoever ('°I don't see Petersburg in you", etc.). In "I Don't Like Petersburg" Vjazemskij's hostility toward the city is indeed tempered by his love for his friends and his regret at leaving them ("I Don't Like Petersburg, but it is with difficulty that I leave you"). 6

Pu~kin's Introduction to 'The Bronze Horseman', like "I Don't Like Petersburg", also evokes a Petersburg associated with a time of friendship in terms that would have been recognizable to his readers from his mention of "hissing" champagne foam and the "blue flame of the punch". It is unlikely that he is not recalling Vjazemskij's earlier poem while alluding to the later one, particularly since Vjazemskij himself seems to have "I Don't Like Pe- tersburg" in mind in 'Conversation'; after all, the very opening of 'Con- versation' is an admission that he had declared previously his hatred of Petersburg ("your May, your Petersburg I sullied and defamed"). It is worth

Vjazemskij's Note on Pu~la'n's Notes on Vjazemslaj and Mickiewicz 69

recalling here that "I Don' t Like Petersburg" was discovered by M. Gillel'son on the same sheet of paper as Vjazemskij's poem "It seemed to me that now I can serve common sense" ("Kazalos' rune: [6to] teper' slu~.it' mogu / Na zdravyj smysl") which was copied out in Pu~kin's hand. 7 Moreover, Pu~kin also marked "I Don't Like Petersburg" with the marginal note "NB". ~ It is thus indisputable that Pu~kin knew "I Don't Like Petersburg" first hand.

"I Don't Like Petersburg" is dated by M. Gillel'son as late April or early May 1828, a date which he establishes "with some certainty" because of Vjazemskij's reference to "leaving" his friends in line 2. 9 This date is ad- ditionally significant in connection with 'The Bronze Horseman' because it clarifies the major contemporary subtext to Pu~kin's poem: Mickiewicz and his anti-Petersburg poems in his 'Digression' ('Ust~p') to Dziady IIL 1° It was at this time, April and May of 1828, that Mickiewicz, Pu~kin and Vjazemskij were all in Petersburg together, frequenting the same houses and indeed sightseeing (they visited Kron~tadt together on May 22, for example). This period is thought to be the height of Mickiewicz's friendship with Pu~kin, an impression largely supported by the numerous first-hand accounts provided by Vjazemskij of the Polish poet's success (with his improvisations in parti- cular) and Pu~kin's unchecked love and admiration for him. 11 This period, in fact, is the one most likely to be the basis for Mickiewicz's poem about his friendship with Pu~kin, 'The Monument to Peter the Great' ( 'Pomnik Piotra Wielkiego'), the fourth poem in his 'Digression'.

Published in 1832, in the aftermath of the Polish Uprising of 1830-1831 and the subsequent occupation of Warsaw by Russian troops in August 1831, the volume containing Dziady III and the 'Digression' was smuggled into Russia by Sergej Sobolevskij, who brought a copy to Pu~kin. Yet the 'Digression' was written much earlier, possibly while Mickiewicz was still in Petersburg - that is, in 1828-1829.aZIn any case, Mickiewicz famously attacks Russia in his 'Digression' and in particular Petersburg, a city that is described as unnatural, demonic, artificially created by the will of a despot and populated by servile, insect-like creatures of all classes and creeds. Moreover, the brutality of the Russian climate is stressed by the Polish poet as unrelentingly cold and fierce; nature is not, as we find in the works of the Russian poets on this theme, tamed by the cultivating Tsar and his heirs who ruled after; rather it is a reflection of the cruel and brutal quality of the autocracy itself. What sympathy Mickiewicz has in these poems is reserved for the underclass, the prisoners, the poor soldiers left for carrion in the military review.

Mickiewicz's depiction of Petersburg shares with those of Pu~kin and Vjazemskij the account of a severe climate, an all-encompassing autocratic will that rivals the creative will of God, and a similar description of the look and architecture of the city: iron-clad banks, even prospects, heavy, brutal stone. All three - in Vjazemskij's case primarily in the earlier poem, "I Don't

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Like Petersburg" - describe the martial parade that is in all accounts of Pe- tersburg a distinguishing feature of the city. Most importantly, Mickiewicz describes at length the monument to Peter in the poem 'The Monument to Peter the First'. Moreover, he puts the account in the mouth of a "famous Russian bard", generally taken to be Pugkin, who explains the statue's signi- ficance to his interlocutor, the Polish "pilgrim", obviously Mickiewicz him- self. The Russian poet informs his friend:

Ju~ car odlany w ksztalcie wielkoluda Siadt na br~tzowym grzbiecie bucefata I miej sca czekat, gdzieby wjechat konno, Lecz Piotr na wtasnej ziemi stad nie mo~e, W ojczy~nie jemu nie dosyd przestronno, Po grunt dla niego postano za morze. Postano wyrwad z finlandzkich nadbrze~ Wzgdrek granitu ten na Pani stowo Plynie po morzu i po la~dzie bieL'y, I w mie~cie pada na wznak przed carow~. Ju~ w wzgdrek got6w leci car miedziany, Car knutowtadny w todze Rzymianina, Wskakuje rumak na granitu gciany, Staje na brzegu i w gdr~ sit wspina. (274) 13

(So this gigantic image of the tsar Bestrides the bronze back of a mettled steed And waits for space where he may ride afar. But Peter could not rest on Russian ground; His native land was small for such as he: His pedestal they sought beyond the sea. From Finland's shore they tore this granite mound, Which when the empress speaks and waves her hand, Floats o'er the sea and runs across the land, And falls into its place at her command. The mound is ready now, and forth he goes, A Roman-toga'd tsar who rules by blows: His charger gallops up the granite steep, Rearing its body for a mighty leap.) (1957: 349) I4

These lines are alluded to in Pu~kin's fifth note to 'The Bronze Horse- man', where he identifies the source of the poem describing the rock import- ed for the statue at the "wave of the Empress's hand": "See the description of the monument by Mickiewicz. It is taken from Ruban, as Mickiewicz himself observes" (1977, IV: 288). Mickiewicz, in fact, does not recall the name of Ruban, but he does acknowledge in his explanatory notes that the lines are

Vjazemskij's Note on Pu~kin "s Notes on Vjazemskij and Mickiewicz 71

from a well-known poem?" Mickiewicz's placement of another poet o imea in the mouth of a Russian poet presumably representing Pugkin perhaps prompted Pu~kin to spell out the source and "clear the record". On the other hand, by referring to this passage he is drawing his readers' attention to one of the parts of Mickiewicz's 'Digression' that he thought referred to himself. When we recall that Mickiewicz's Dziady III and its accompanying 'Di- gression' was a contraband text that was not to appear in Russian print until 1909, this elaborate exchange of notes is striking indeed] 6 Pu~kin knew Russians were reading Mickiewicz's poems, and was most likely addressing therefore a group of his own friends. The other part of the 'Digression' that Pu~kin took to allude to himself is Mickiewicz's dismissal of poets who survived the Decembrist Uprising and now appeared at court; it appears in the final stanza of the dedicatory poem to the 'Digression', 'To My Russian Friends' ('Do przyj aci6t Moskali'):

Kto z was podniesie skarg% dla mnie jego skarga B~dzie jak psa szczekanie, ktdry tak sit wdroL, y Do cierpliwie i dtugo noszonej obroL, y, Ze w koficu gotdw ka~sad - r@% co ja~ targa. (296)

(If one of you cry out, his plaint unsteady The barking of a dog shall seem to me, Chained up so long that he at last is ready To bite the hand that gives him liberty.) (368)

Quite possibly Pu~kin's reference to Mickiewicz's 'Monument' poem in 'The Bronze Horseman' is a sort of distraction from this second, more painful and distressing allusion Pu~kin thinks Mickiewicz is making. Indeed, it is the reference in 'To My Russian Friends' that caused Pu~kin to turn against Mickiewicz, although he had more or less softened in this attitude by the time he was writing 'The Bronze Horseman'. iv Whatever the case, despite Pu~kin's touchiness in taking Mickiewicz's insult to be directed at him, he is much more recognizable in the positive figure of the Russian bard in 'The Monument of Peter the Great' than he is in the servile court dog in 'To My Russian Friends' (the latter could refer to several poets, after all, including Vj azemskij).

To return to the image of the statue evoked in Mickiewicz's poem, one is struck by the emphasis on forward movement; the horse "waits for space" in which to leap because Russia is too small for mighty Peter. The Russian poet then compares this impatient and forbidding statue with the peaceful horse in Rome that holds the just and legitimate ruler, Marcus Aurelius. Its

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slow, stately, movement is presented as a better image of statehood than the frantic monument to Peter. And so, the Russian bard concludes:

Car Piotr wypugcit rumakowi wodze, Widad, ~e leciat tratuj~c po drodze, Od razu wskoczyt a~ na sam brzeg skaty. Ju2 kofi szalony wznidst w gdr~ kopyta, Car go nie trzyma, kofi w~dzidlem zgrzyta, Zgadniesz, 2e spadnie i prygnie w kawaty. Od wieku stoi, skacze, lecz nie spada, Jako lec~ca z granitdw kaskada, Gdy ~ci~ta mrozem nad przepa~ci~ zwi~nie: - Lecz skoro stofice swobody zabtygnie I wiatr zachodni ogrzeje te pafistwa, I c6~ sit stanie z kaskada: tyrafistwa? (275)

(His charger's reins Tsar Peter has released; He has been flying down the road, perchance, And here the precipice checks his advance. With hoofs aloft now stands the maddened beast, Champing its bit unchecked, with slackened rein: You guess that it will fall and be destroyed. Thus it has galloped long, with tossing mane, Like a cascade, leaping into the void, That, fettered by the frost, hangs dizzily. But soon will shine the sun of liberty, And from the west a wind will warm this land. - Will the cascade of tyranny then stand?) (350)

The horse is an image of anarchy here, let loose by a "slackened rein" and pausing over a chasm. Peter, it would seem, has released this elemental force and it is only the "frost" that holds it. Only warm weather, the sun, from the west, will tell whether Peter will win or be swallowed by the chasm.

This complex image is addressed in 'The Bronze Horseman', although, as many have noted, Pugkin seems to affirm Mickiewicz's thoughts as much as refute them. The passage in question appears just at the moment Evgenij, maddened by sorrow at the death of Para~a, notices the monument and decides to challenge it. The point of view, therefore, is very close to that of Evgenij:

gx~acen OH B oKpecTHO~ Mrsle[ I~aKa~ ayMa Ha ~eze! KaKa~ cHJia B HeM COKpbITa!

Vjazemsla) 's Note on Pu~lan's Notes on Vjazemskij and Mickiewicz 73

A B CeM KOHe Kaxofi 0rOHb! KyAa TbI cKaqemb, rop~s~fi X0Hb, tI rAe onycTItlIIb TBI KOm,~Ta? O MOIIIHI~IM BJIaCTeJIHH cy/Ib6bI!

He TaR Jlrl TbI Ha)I CaMO~ 6ea~IHOfi, Ha BSICOTe, y3jIO~ me~ie3Hofi Poccnro nO~IHan Ha ,/I]bI6bl? (1977, IV: 286)

(He is terrible in the neighboring gloom! What thought there is on his brow! What strength is hidden in him! And what fire is in this horse! Where are you riding, proud steed and where will you rest your hoofs? O mighty ruler of fate! Is it not thus that you reared Russia on its hind legs, up high, with your iron bridle at the edge of the chasm?)

Pu~kin repeats the image of the chasm found in Mickiewicz, and both passages refer to the fact that the horse is reared up on its hind legs (Mic- kiewicz: "w gdr~ kopyta"; Pu~kin: "na dyby"). Yet Pu~kin ennobles the horse by describing it as "fiery" rather than "maddened", as Mickiewiez has it. More significantly, Pu~kin's horse is rearing up because Peter forces it to with an "iron bridle" - as though saving it, and all of Russia, from the chasm. It is after this passage that Pu~kin places his fifth footnote, addressing the reader to Mickiewicz. A curious dialogue is thus engaged by means of these notes: Pu~kin's demented hero evokes lines from another poet (Ruban) placed in the mouth of Pugkin himself (the "famous Russian bard") in the lines of the Polish poet Mickiewicz.

In fact, Pu~kin was not the only poet who may have discussed the statue with Mickiewicz as the Polish poet relates in his poem, and in a sense Pugkin's note (reminding the reader of Ruban) serves to broaden the web of "implicated" poets in the lines about the monument. It so happens that Prince Vjazemskij wrote his own note in the margins of his copy of 'The Bronze Horseman', next to the line "reared Russia on its hind legs": "This is my expression, told to Mickiewicz and Pu~kin when we were walking past the monument. I said that the monument is symbolic. Peter raised Russia on its hind legs [podnjal Rossiju na dyby] rather than urged it forward [pognal ee

,, 18 vpered] . Vjazemskij refers to this incident in his memorial essay 'Mic- kiewicz on Pu~kin' (1873), although he modestly does not take credit for the image himself. Speaking of Mickiewicz's poem on the 'Monument of Peter the Great', Vjazemskij notes that Mickiewicz "ascribes to Pugkin" words he could never have said, but that this is a permissible "poetic and political liberty". After this comment he adds: "However, the observation that the steed under Peter is more reared on its hind legs than leaping forward belongs neither to Mickiewicz nor to Pugkin. ''19 Vjazemskij does not trouble to clarify

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this cryptic qualification which ends the first section of his essay; it goes without saying that the editors of this essay are obliged to explain it in a note.

It cannot be claimed, certainly, that Vjazemskij is an equal force in the genesis of 'The Bronze Horseman' as is Mickiewicz; on the contrary. Yet given Vjazemskij's previous series of judgments on Petersburg which were well known to Pu~kin and very likely to Mickiewicz as well, it would be surprising if Vjazemskij were not to try to wedge his foot between the mighty poet-friends Pu~kin and Mickiewicz described in the Polish poem as "clasp- ing hands" and sharing the warmth of a single cloak, "twin crags jutting from an Alpine creek" (1957: 349). He does not, in fact, do anything of the sort. Rather, at the end of his life, rereading Pu~kin (his comment is from an edition that came out in 1870), remembering Mickiewicz and Pu~kin's friend- ship in Petersburg in 1828 - a friendship in which Vjazemskij was a constant and, to all accounts, equal participant - he chooses, like Horatio, to record what happened as accurately as possible. He is the only survivor of those days and keenly feels their distance from the time in which he is living. 2° Vjazemskij's Petersburg poems deserve, however, more than a note to the story of Mickiewicz's 'Digression' and 'The Bronze Horseman': he was the main witness to the vicissitudes of Pu~kin's ambiguous feelings for Russia and Petersburg in the wake of the Polish Uprising in 1830-1831. That Pu~kin and Vjazemskij differed politically and morally on the "Polish question", with Vjazemskij showing unflagging support and sympathy for Poland and Pu~kin standing up as a staunch Russian nationalist, never damaged their friendship seriously. And Pu~kin's complex evocation of Petersburg and Mickiewicz in 'The Bronze Horseman' has, on some level, a private meaning for Vjazemskij. Pu~kin reminds his friend, as it were, that they share this troubled patriotism, one that finds expression in both their poetic visions of Petersburg.

NOTES

All quotations from Pugldn are from Pu~kin (1977). Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Letter from March 22, 1833. Dawdov writes: "When will you stop writing women [babam] these candy-wrapper poems! [...] Better to write passionate verses to Zavadovskaja [...] but to hell with these high-society compliments" (cited in Vjazemskij 1986: 496). All quotations from Vjazemskij's poems are from Vjazemskij (1986).

Vjazemskij's Note on Pu~kin's Notes on Vjazemskij and Mickiewiez 75

See Gillel'son (1969: 274); see also Cjavlovskaja and Cjavlovskij (1935:511- 5 1 2 ) . v A.S. Skurin was the Police Chief of St. Petersburg; Lycurgus refers to the well-known Spartan legislator. Vjazemskij had written an earlier poem about Petersburg in 1818-1819, published under the title 'Petersburg, a Fragment' (1824: 118-120). Space does not permit a detailed discussion of this poem here, but Vjazemskij scholar D. Ivinskij points out that this is an early exchange in what was to become a three-way dialogue on the theme of Petersburg between Vjazemskij, Pu~kin and Mickiewicz (1994: 29). GilM'son (1969: 274). See Tarchova and Cjavlovskij (1999: 379). Gillel'son (1969: 275). Vjazemskij was turned down for a post he had applied for in April 1828; he left St. Petersburg in June of that year. Both poems on this manuscript page refer to this disappointment. There are several accounts of this influence. For example, see Lednicki (1955); Cjavlovskij (1962: 157-206); Kahn (1998: 98-108). See, in particular, Cjavlovskij (1962: 168). Lednicki (1966: 25). All quotations from Mickiewicz's 'Digression' are from Mickiewicz (1957). All translations of Mickiewicz, unless otherwise indicated, are from Noyes (1944). Mickiewicz (1957, 3: 304). Tomagevskij, editing Pu~kin's works, gives the citation from Ruban and explains that he was a "minor" eighteenth-century court poet but that these lines were nonetheless "well-known" in Pu~kin's time (Pu~kin 1977, IV: 430). Many of Pu~kin's notes require notes in turn to be comprehensible. Bogatyr' et al. (1957, # 584); see also Struve (1956: 121). See, for example, Cjavlovskij (1962: 183-194); Kahn (1998: 102). Bogatyr' et al. (1957, # 1570). Vjazemskij (1998: 124). Vjazemskij's status as the survivor of a great era cannot be exaggerated. In all accounts of his work, everything after the 1850's is not examined carefully and given the attention of his earlier writings; it is as though he completely dropped out of the literary scene. For example, the final chapter of Gillel'- son's book on Vjazemskij is called 'Vjazemskij's' Decline' ('Zakat Vjazem- skogo') and it covers the extensive period of 1848-1873, a period in which Vjazemskij continued to work and publish! To be sure, he was regarded by his own contemporaries as a living relic, and it is typical of Vjazemskij's fate that at the very time when his views were taking a conservative turn and he was trying to return to political favor the upstart Gercen published his "forbidden" poems from the 1810's and 1820's in the exiled Russian press in London, an event which may well have caused him embarrassment with the authorities (see Gillel'son 1969: 321-364). For more on Vjazemskij's wistful psychology of the survivor, see Luc Beaudoin's essay in this issue.

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LITERATURE

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Cjavlovskaja, T.G., Cjavlovskij, M.A. 1935 Rukoju Pugkina. Nesobrannye i neopublikovannye teksty. Moskva-

Leningrad. Cj avlovskij, M.A.

'Pu~kin i Mickevi6'. Stat'i o Pu~kine. Moskva, 157-178. 1962 Gillel'son, M.I.

1969 Ivinskij, D.

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Kahn, Andrew 1998

P.A. Vjazemsla)'. Zizn' i tvordestvo. Leningrad.

Knjaz" Petr Andreevi( Vjazemskij i Aleksandr Sergeevid Pugkin: oderk istorii lidnyeh i tvordeskich otno~enij. Moskva.

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Utwory wybrane, Vol. 3. Warszawa. Rapall (Ed.) Poems by Adam Mickiewicz. New York.

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Tarchova, N.A., Cjavlovskij, M.A. (Eds.) 1 9 9 9 Letopis" ~izni i tvordestva Aleksandra Pu~kina v detyrech tomaeh.

Tom vtoroj, 1825-1828. Moskva. Vjazemskij, P.A.

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grad. 1 9 9 8 'Mickevi6 o Pugkine'. Pu~kin v vospominanijach sovremennikov.

Pervyj tom. Sankt-Peterburg, 123-132.