Strasbourg pie: a rich pastry made with goose liver, for which the French city is famous.
11 Cleopatra , . . Phdre . . . Mona: the heroines of various plays, operas, or ballets performed in St Petersburg at the time. The Cleopatra that Pushkin had in mind is uncertain; the Phdre was either Racine's tragedy or an opera based on it; Mona is the heroine of Ozerov's tragedy, Fingal.
12 Enchanted land!. . . perfected: the stanza evokes the Russian theatre around the turn of the century, when for the most part imitations of Corneille, Racine, and Molire prevailed. D. Fon-vizin (1745-92), the most noteworthy of the playwrights mentioned, was the author of two successful satires, The Minor and
KThe Brigadier. Y. Knyazhnin (1742-91), V. Ozerov (1769-1816), and P. Katenin (1792-1852) wrote Frenchified tragedies; A. Shakhovskoy (1777-1846) wrote equally derivative comedies. E. Semyonova (1786-1849) was an accomplished Shakespearian actress who performed in Russian dramas as well. Charles-Louis Didelot (1767-1837), French ballet master and choreographer, was associated with the St Petersburg ballet.
13 Istmina: A. I. Istomina (1799-1848). A celebrated ballerina who was a pupil of Didelot. She danced in ballets that were based on works by Pushkin, and early in her career the poet had courted her.
15 Grimm: Frdric Melchior Grimm (1723-1807). French encyclopedist. In a note to these lines Pushkin quotes from Rousseau's Confessions on the encounter between the two men and then comments: 'Grimm was ahead of his age: nowadays, all over enlightened Europe, people clean their nails with a special brush.'
15 Chadyev: the manuscript provides evidence for the name given here. Pyotr Chadayev (1793-1856) was a friend of the poet and a brilliant personality. Both fop and philosopher, he was the author of the famous Lettres philosophiques, of which only one was published in Russia during his lifetime. His work helped to precipitate, through its critique of Russian history, the great debate between the Westernizer and Slavophile camps of Russian thought. For the expression of his ideas, Chadayev was officially declared insane, although he continued to take an active part in Moscow social life.
22 Say or Bentham: the French economist Jean Baptiste Say (1767 1832) and the English jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) were much discussed at the time in progressive circles.
Capricious. . . spleen: in a note to the stanza Pushkin comments archly: 'The whole of this ironical stanza is nothing but a subtle compliment to our fair compatriots. Thus Boileau, under the guise of reproach, eulogizes Louis XIV. Our ladies combine enlightenment with amiability, and strict purity of morals with that Oriental charm which so captivated Mme. de Stal.' See Dix ans d'exil.
25 As . . . himself: a mocking allusion to M. Muravyov (1757-1807) and his lyric poem 'To the Goddess of the Neva'.
26 Brenta: the river that flows into the Adriatic near Venice.
Albion's great and haughty lyre: the reference is to Byron's poetry.
shore: 'Written in Odessa' (Pushkin's note).
my Africa's warm sky: 'The author, on his mother's side, is of African descent. His great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Anni-bal, in his eighth year was abducted from the coast of Africa and taken to Constantinople. The Russian envoy, after rescuing him, sent him as a gift to Peter the Great, who had him baptized in Vilno.' Thus Pushkin begins a rather lengthy note on the life of his African ancestor. The young man was subsequently sent abroad by Peter to study fortification and military mining. After a sojourn of some seven years in France, he was recalled to the service in Russia, where he had a rather chequered career as a military engineer. He was eventually made a general by the empress Elizabeth and died in retirement, in 1781, at nearly 90 years of age, on one of the estates granted him by the crown. The third of his eleven children (by a second wife) was the poet's maternal grandfather.
30 sang the Salghir captives' praises: the references are to the heroines in two of Pushkin's narrative poems: the Circassian girl in The Caucausian Captive and the harem girls in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. The Salghir is a river near Bakhchisarai, a Tartar town and former residence of the Crimean khans.
Chapter 2
33 0 rus!... #62038; Rus'!: the epigraph employs a pun. The first 'O rus!' (Horace, Satires 2. 6) means 'O countryside!'; the second invokes the old and lyrical name for 'Russia'.
36 corve. . . rate: the corve was the unpaid labour that a serf was required to provide to his master. Onegin, an enlightened squire, has decided to improve the lot of his peasants by asking instead for a small payment.
37 Mason: since Masonic organizations at the time were centres of liberal thought, a provincial landowner would have considered the member of such a group a revolutionary.
38 That there exists. . . redeeming grace: the last five lines of this stanza, which give Lensky's views on the mission of poets, were omitted by Pushkin from the final text, presumably because he anticipated the censor's objection.
43 passions: the dangerous emotions or 'passions' refer here not only to sensual love but also to feelings of enmity, jealousy, and 1 avarice.
46 that name: 'The most euphonious Greek names, such as, for example, Agathon, Philetus, Theodora, Thecla, and so forth, are used with us only among the common people' (Pushkin's note).
50 shaved the shirkers: serfs who were chosen by their owners for army service had their forelocks shaved for easy recognition.
52 At Trinity. . . deserved: lines 5-11 were omitted in all editions during Pushkin's lifetime. On Trinity Day, the Sunday after Whitsunday, people often brought a birch-tree branch or a bouquet of field flowers to church. The tradition in some regions, according to Vladimir Nabokov, called for the worshipper to shed as many tears for his sins as there were dewdrops on the branch he carried.
