Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

While understanding that Pushkin was a genius and soberly assessing the political achievements and human qualities of Nicholas I, we must also remember that the main sticking points in these intertwined and uneven relations were their diametrically opposed ideas of what constituted “service.”

This difference imbues “The Bronze Horseman,” Pushkin’s shortest (only 481 lines) but most complex narrative poem, written in 1833. The plot centers on the clash between the poor clerk Yevgeny (Pushkin originally planned him to be a poet) and the famous equestrian statue of Peter the Great by Falconet towering over Senate Square in St. Petersburg. This fantastic confrontation, perhaps a delirious dream, perhaps not, playing out during the terrible flood of 1824, remains the most potent Russian literary symbol of the conflict of the all-powerful state and the defenseless individual.

The flood kills Yevgeny’s bride, and, maddened by grief, he blames her death on Peter, who insisted on erecting his new capital in a treacherous location. Yevgeny, “teeth clenched, fingers in a fist,” threatens the statue: “All right, you miracle-working builder! You’ll get it!”

Suddenly, the statue comes to life: a wrathful Peter on his steed pursues the poor madman through the empty, moonlit streets of St. Petersburg. Yevgeny dies, while the great city created by the emperor still stands, “as steadfast as Russia,” with the Bronze Horseman reigning in its center.

Both Yevgeny and the emperor are in the right, according to Pushkin, and it is up to the reader to decide whose right prevails. This philosophical ambivalence confused and angered its first reader, Nicholas I. For him the answer was obvious—the monarch, the embodiment of the state, was right. He leads the country to greatness, paying no attention to human sacrifices, and the people must obey him—that is, “serve”: that is God’s will.

Nicholas read the manuscript closely and underlined and crossed out many passages. He was particularly outraged by Yevgeny’s threat to Peter. Pushkin was ordered to change the poem in accordance with Nicholas’s ideas, and the poet accepted some of them, but he refused to eliminate the challenge to the mighty ruler from his wretched subject: “All right, you miracle-working builder! You’ll get it!”

For Pushkin, this passage was the poem’s climax (which Nicholas seemed to intuit). Pushkin preferred to leave “The Bronze Horseman” in his desk drawer, where it lay until his death, first appearing in a mutilated form in April 1837. Ever since, the poem has remained at the center of Russia’s continuing debate over which is more crucial: the power and majesty of the state, or the rights and happiness of the individual? And how to compare the achievements of the national leader and those of the national poet? Which is more important for history and the country’s self-image?

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Karamzin as author of the History of the Russian State, which Pushkin called “not only the creation of a great writer but the exploit of an honest man,” was Pushkin’s model of how a poet should serve the state.

The reference to “an honest man” underscores Pushkin’s conditions for his collaboration with the state, in which his concept of honor must not be threatened. He liked Karamzin’s aphorism “Il ne faut pas qu’un honnete homme merite d’etre pendu” (“An honest man does not deserve hanging”). In 1831 he wrote to Alexander Benckendorff, chief of the Third Department of the Imperial Chancellery (overseeing state security) and official intermediary between Pushkin and Nicholas, that he wanted to do “historical research in our state archives and libraries. I do not dare nor wish to take on the title of historian after the unforgettable Karamzin; but I can with time fulfill my long-held desire to write the History of Peter the Great and his heirs.”

Nicholas approved the ambitious application from the poet still considered politically unreliable. Soon afterward, Pushkin was able to tell a friend, “The tsar (between us) has taken me into service, i.e., given me a salary and permission to dig in the archives to compile a History of Peter I. Long live the tsar!”

Suddenly setting aside the promised history of Peter the Great, Pushkin rather quickly wrote “The History of Pugachev,” based on classified materials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The topic was still too hot—it wasn’t even sixty years since the bloody uprising of Cossacks and peasants led by Pugachev had been suppressed ruthlessly, shocking Russia in the reign of Catherine the Great, and some witnesses of the events were still around. Therefore Pushkin presented the completed manuscript for Nicholas’s examination with trepidation.

Contrary to expectations, the emperor was satisfied and made only a few corrections (which Pushkin characterized as to the point)—for example, revising the manuscript’s title, “The History of the Pugachev Rebellion.”

Moreover, Nicholas ordered that the state printing press publish the book, thus giving the author a chance to earn some 30,000 rubles, Pushkin calculated, and “live the sweet life.” (The book, however, was a flop.)

As for the history of Peter the Great, Pushkin continued working on it intermittently until his death, but he left nothing but two dozen notebooks with notes and extracts from numerous documents and books. Nicholas read that manuscript, too, after the poet’s death, and at first did not recommend it for publication, but finally agreed with Zhukovsky’s arguments that it should be printed. Still, no publisher for this project was found. Pushkin’s manuscript was returned to the poet’s widow, and the tsar hired a professional historian for a book about Peter I.

In 1831, Pushkin married a Moscow beauty from a once wealthy but now bankrupt family, the eighteen-year-old Natalie Goncharova. The tsar was pleased that “his” Pushkin was settling down. Pushkin seemed happy. They had children: between 1832 and 1836 two girls and two boys. There were no signs that this marriage would start a chain of events that would lead to the poet’s tragic death.

There is no more famous mythos in Russian culture than the story of Pushkin’s marriage, duel, and death. Many books and innumerable articles have appeared on the subject, presenting starkly different interpretations. The more we learn of the events, the more inexplicable they seem.

Here is a brief summary. The marriage sharply exacerbated Pushkin’s chronic lack of funds; he always lived beyond his means and gambled at cards, as well. He had hoped to improve his financial affairs by publishing Contemporary magazine. He knew that a general-interest magazine could be profitable— the popular monthly Library for Reading, with its seven thousand subscribers paying 50 rubles annually, made the publisher Senkovsky a wealthy man.

Pushkin managed to put out four issues of Contemporary. It was a quality journal, but too serious for the audience Pushkin hoped to attract. Its rivals called it elitist and the circulation fell continually, destroying Pushkin’s fantasy of a way out of his financial dead end.

Nicholas I became Pushkin’s major benefactor: he gave the poet two loans (totaling 50,000 rubles).¹⁷ All around, at the end of his life Pushkin owed a vast amount of money: around 140,000 rubles.¹⁸

This made his position very vulnerable in late 1833 when Nicholas granted him the court title of gentleman of the chamber, with required attendance at court ceremonies and balls. This was the lowest court title, formally in strict accordance with Pushkin’s low civil rank. The vain poet was furious.

Zhukovsky barely restrained his impulsive friend (literally pouring cold water on him) from “speaking rudely” with Nicholas himself. The irony is that Pushkin brought upon himself the appointment that he felt was so incommensurate with his achievements and therefore so humiliating.