Eugene Onegin

by Александр Пушкин

  53 Ochdkov decoration: a medal that commemorated the taking of the Black Sea fortress of Ochakov in 1788, during the Turkish campaign.

  Chapter 3

  55 Elle. . . amoureuse: 'She was a girl, she was in love.'

  58 A drink . . . coach: in most editions the final six lines of this stanza are omitted.

  59 Svetlana: the reference is to the heroine of a ballad by Vasily Zhukovsky (1783-1852), a talented poet and Pushkin's friend.

  61 Julie Wolmr: the heroine in a novel by Rousseau, Julie, ou La Nouvelle Hlose.

  Malk-Adhl: the hero of Mathilde, a novel by Mme Cottin (1773-1807).

  de Linr: a character in the novel Valrie by Baroness von Krudener (1764-1807).

  Clarissa: the heroine of Richardson's Clarissa.

  Julia: again, the character from Rousseau's Julie.

  Delphine: the heroine in a novel of the same name by Mme de Stal.

  62 The Vampire. . . Sbogar: the Vampire is presumably from the 1819 tale of that name by John Polidori, Byron's physician. Melmoth is the hero of Melmoth the Wanderer, published in 1820 by Charles Robert Maturin. The Corsair is the poem by Byron. The legend of the wandering Jew was widely used by writers in the Romantic era. Jean Sbogar is the title of a short French novel published in 1818 by Charles Nodier. These are all works of Pushkin's own time, whereas Tatyana's reading comes from an earlier generation; only in Chapter Seven will she discover Byron in Onegin's abandoned library.

  70 The Good Samaritan: a Moscow literary journal, actually called the Well-intentioned (Blagonamerennyj).

  71 Bogdanovich: I. F. Bogdanovich (1743-1803): a minor poet and translator from the French. His narrative poem Dushen 'ka (Little Psyche) exerted some influence on the young Pushkin.

  Parny: Evariste-Dsir de Parny (1753-1814). French poet famed for the elegance of his love poetry. His Posies erotiques influenced Russian poetry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

  Bard of The Feasts: the reference is to Evgeny Baratynsky (1800-44), a friend of Pushkin's and a fellow poet. His elegy The Feasts was written in 1820, while its author was serving in the

  ranks in Finland, after having been expelled from military school for theft. Set in a gloomy Finland, his poem evokes a happier time with poet-friends in the Petersburg of 1819.

  72 Freischutz: the reference is to the overture from Der Freischiitz, an opera by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826).

  Chapter 4

  83 La morale . .. choses: 'Morality is in the nature of things.'

  96 Tolstoy: Count F. P. Tolstoy (1783-1873): a well known and fashionable artist.

  97 No madrigals. . . flows: the octave of this stanza exhibits a rare divergence from the usual pattern: like the Italian sonnet, it employs but two rhymes in the eight lines and thus provides a rather pleasing accompaniment to a discussion of poetic form.

  Yazykov: N. M. Yazykov ^180346): a minor poet and acquaintance of Pushkin.

  trumpet, mask, and dagger: emblems of the classical drama.

  odes: for Pushkin the term 'ode' suggested bombastic and heavy pieces in the eighteenth-century Russian manner; his own preference was clearly for the romantic 'elegy', by which term he would have described any short contemplative lyric. The mock debate conducted in this and the following stanza reflects an actual dispute between the 'archaists' and 'modernists' of Pushkin's day.

  98 The Other: the allusion is to Chuzhoi talk (Another's View), a satire on the writers of odes by I. Dmitriev (1760-1837).

  99 36: this stanza appeared only in the separate edition of Chapters 4 and 5.

  100 Gulnare's proud singer: Byron, in The Corsair.

  102 Pradt: Dominique de Pradt (1759-1837): a prolific French political writer.

  103 Hippocrene: a fountain or spring on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, sacred in Greek mythology to the Muses.

  104 A: or Ay; a champagne whose name derives from a town in the Marne district of northern France.

  entre chien et loup: dusk, or the time of day 'between the dog and the wolf (i.e., when the shepherd has difficulty in distinguishing between the two).

  106 Lafontaine's: August Lafontaine (1758-1851). A German writer, author of numerous novels on family life.

  Chapter 5

  no Another bard. . . shade: 'See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky' (Pushkin's note). Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky (1792 1878), poet, critic, and wit, was a close friend of Pushkin. He appears in the novel by name in Chapter 7, stanza 49.

  bard of Finland's maid divine!: 'See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky's Edd1(Pushkin's note).

  112 lThe Kitty's Song': at Yuletide, and especially on Twelfth Night, several traditions for fortune-telling were observed by women and girls (particularly among the common people). The shapes taken by molten wax or lead when submerged in water were read as prophetic, and so-called 'dish divining songs' were sung. In the latter case, girls would place their rings in a covered bowl of water before singing carols. At the end of each song, a ring was drawn at random, and its owner would deduce some portent or meaning from the kind of song just sung. Tatyana's song on this occasion is a portent of death, whereas 'The Kitty's Song', which girls prefer, is a prophecy of marriage.

  113 trains a mirror. . . nearer: training a mirror on the moon was another method of divination, the reflected face of the man-in-the-moon supposedly revealing to the enquiring maiden her future husband.

  'Agafon': by asking the name of the first stranger she encountered, a girl hoped to learn the name of her future fianc. The name that Tatyana hears, Agafon (from the Greek 'Agathon'), sounds particularly rustic and old-fashioned, and therefore comic, to a Russian ear.

  conjure all night through: another device for discovering one's husband-to-be: conjuring up his spirit at an all-night vigil.

  Svetlana: the heroine of Zhukovsky's ballad. In the poem, when Svetlana conjures her absent lover, he carries her off to his grave. Fortunately, Svetlana's terrors remain only a dream.

  Lel: supposedly a pagan Slavic deity of love; more likely (according to Nabokov) merely derived from the chanted refrain of old songs (e.g., the ay lyuli lyuli of many Russian folk-songs).

  119 Martyn Zadck: the name, evidently a fabrication, appears as the author of several collections of prophecies and dream interpretations, published both in Russia and in Germany.

  120 Malvina: a novel by Mme Cottin (1773-1807).

  Two Petriads: heroic poems on Peter the Great, several of which were in circulation at the time.

  Marmontel: Jean Franois Marmontel (1723-99), French encyclopedist and short-story writer.

  121 But lo!. . . the sun: 'A parody of some well-known lines by Lomonosov' (Puskin's note). The crimson hand of Aurora (deriving of course from the Homeric 'rosy-fingered dawn') appears in several odes by M. V. Lomonosov (1711-65), scientist and poet and the founder of Moscow University.

  Buynov: Mr Rowdy, the hero of a popular and racy poem by Pushkin's uncle, Vasily Pushkin; thus, playfully, Pushkin's cousin. The names given to the other guests are also traditionally comic ones: Pustyakov (Trifle), Gvozdin (Bash), Skotinin (Brute), Petushkov (Rooster).

  122 Rveillez-vous, belle endormie: Awaken, sleeping beauty.

  Tatyan: Triquet pronounces Tatyana's name in the French manner, with the stress on the last syllable. 124 a lavish pie: the Russian pirog, a meat- or cabbage-pie.

  Zizi: Evpraksia Wulf (1809-83), who as a young girl lived near Pushkin's family estate at Mikhailovskoe and with whom he flirted when confined there in 1824. Pushkin became her lover briefly in 1829. Writing to a friend in 1836 from Mikhailovskoe on his last visit there, he recalls her as 'a formerly half-ethereal maiden, now a well-fed wife, big with child for the fifth time'.

  127 Albani's glory: Francesco Albani (1578-1660): Italian painter much admired in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

  Chapter 6

  131 La sotto. . . dole: 'There, where the days are cloudy and short | Is born a race that has no fear of death.'

 
135 Regulus: the Roman general Marcus Atilius Regulus, who, upon his capture by the Carthaginians, was sent to Rome to deliver harsh terms for peace; whereupon he returned to his captors as he had promised and was executed.

  Vry's: Caf Very, a Parisian restaurant.

  141 Delvig: Baron Anton Delvig (1798-1831), minor poet and one of Pushkin's closest friends, his classmate at the Lyceum in Tsar-skoe Selo.

  144 Lepage's deadly pieces: Jean Lepage (1779-1822), famous Parisian gunsmith.

  Chapter 7

  158 Lyovshin's crew: students of works by Vasily Lyovshin (1746-1826), author of numerous tracts on gardening and agriculture.

  165 iron bust: A statuette of Napoleon.

  166 The bard of Juan and the Giaour. Byron.

  173 Automedons: Autmedon was the charioteer of Achilles in the Iliad.

  174 Petrovsky Castle: the chateau not far from Moscow where Napoleon took refuge from the fires in the city.

  17g ''Archivai dandies': young men from well-connected families who held cushy jobs at the Moscow Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  Vyzemsky: Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky (1792-1878), friend of Pushkin.

  180 Grand Assembly: the Russian Assembly of Nobility, a Moscow club for noblemen.

  Chapter 8

  185 Lyce: the lyceum established by Alexander I at Tsarskoe Selo for young aristocrats. Pushkin attended the boarding-school there between 1811 and 1817, and to the end of his life remained deeply attached to his friends of those years. It was at the lyceum that he composed his first poems.

  Derzhvin: Gavrila Derzhvin (1743-1816): the most outstanding Russian poet of the eighteenth century. In the year before he died, Derzhvin attended a school examination at which the 16-year-old Pushkin recited one of his poems, which the old man praised.

  186 Lenore: the heroine of the romantic ballad by Gottfried Burger (I747-94)-

  Tauris: an ancient name for the Crimea. Pushkin's visit to the Crimea and his earlier stay in the Caucasus (to which he refers in a line above) were commemorated in two of his so-called 'southern' poems, The Prisoner of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

  Nereids': sea-nymphs, daughters of the sea-god Nereus.

  187 sing the savage steppe: an allusion to the narrative poem The Gypsies, yet another of Pushkin's southern works.

  my garden: Pushkin's country place at Mikhailovskoe, to which he was confined by the government from August 1824 to September 1826 and where he resumed work on Eugene Onegin.

  Demon of my pen!: a reference to his poem 'The Demon', in which he speaks of having been haunted in his youth by an 'evil genius', a spirit of negation and doubt who mocked the ideals of love and freedom.

  191 Chatsky: the hero of Griboedov's comedy Woe from Wit (1824). Chatsky, after some three years abroad, turns up on the day of a party at the Moscow house of the girl he loves.

  Shishkov: Admiral Alexander Shishkov (1754-1841), the leader of the Archaic group of writers, was a statesman and publicist who attacked both Gallicisms and liberal thought in Russian letters.

  192 epigram of style: an allusion to some possible epigrammatic play on the word 'vulgar' and the last name of Faddei Bulgarin ( 1789-1859), a literary critic and notorious police informer who was hostile to Pushkin.

  Nina Voronskya: an invented name for a stylized society belle. Russian commentators on the poem have suggested various real-life prototypes.

  197 badge on those two maids-in-waiting: a court decoration with the royal initials, given to ladies-in-waiting of the empress.

  Proldzov: the name (derived from prolaza, roughly 'sycophant' or 'social climber') appears only in posthumous editions. According to Nabokov it was often attached to ridiculous characters in eighteenth-century Russian comedies and in popular pictures.

  Saint-Priest. Count Emmanuel Sen-Pri (1806-28), the son of a French migr and a noted caricaturist.

  204 Gibbon and Rousseau . . . Fontenelle he scoured: the listing device is a favourite of Pushkin's. Besides Rousseau, this catalogue of Onegin's reading includes: Edward Gibbon (1737-94), the English historian; Sbastien Chamfort (1740-94), French writer famous for his maxims and epigrams; Alessandro Manzoni ( 1785-1873), Italian novelist and poet of the Romantic school; Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803), the German philosopher; Mme de Stal (1766-1817), the French writer (whose novel Delphine was listed earlier as one of Tatyana's favourites); Marie F. X. Bichat (1771-1802), French physician and anatomist,

  the author of Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort; Simon Tissot (1728-1797), a famous Swiss doctor, author of the treatise De la sant des gens de lettres; Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), French philosopher, author of the famous Dictionnaire historique et critique; Bernard Fontenelle (1657-1757), French rationalist philosopher and man of letters, author of Dialogues des morts.

  205 Benedetta: 'Benedetta sia la madre' (Blessed be the mother), a popular Venetian barcarolle.

  Idol mio: 'Idol mio, piu pace non ho' (My idol, I have peace no longer), the refrain from a duet by Vincenzo Gabussi (1800-46).

  212 ''Some are no more, and distant. . . others': though probably written in 1824, these lines were taken almost immediately as an allusion to Pushkin's friends among the executed or exiled Decembrists (participants in the ill-fated revolt of December 1825).

  Sadi: the thirteenth-century Persian poet.

  Appendix

  215 Camenae: water-nymphs identified with the Greek Muses.

  Katenin: Pavel Katenin (1792-1853). A minor poet and critic, whose Recollections of Pushkin were published in the twentieth century.

  217 Makriev Market: a famous market fair held in midsummer in the town of Makariev, to which it moved in 1817 from Nizhni Novgorod.

  218 Terek: a river in the Caucasus.

  Kara's and Argva 's banks: refers to two mountain rivers in the Caucasus.

  Beshtu: (or Besh Tau): a five-peaked mountain eminence in the northern Caucasus.

  Mashuk: one of the peaks in the northern Caucasus.

  219 Orestes with his friend here vied: a reference to the tale of Orestes and his friend Pylades, who argued over which of them would be sacrificed to the goddess Artemis, each wishing to die in the other's place. In the end both escaped, along with the temple priestess, who turned out to be Iphigenia, Orestes' sister.

  Mithridates: King of Pontus, who in 63 #62058; #62073;, after being defeated by Rome, ordered one of his soldiers to kill him. Pushkin visited his alleged tomb while travelling in the Crimea in 1820.

  219 Adam Mickiwicz: Polish national poet (1798-1855), who spent almost five years in Russia, where he made the acquaintance of Pushkin. His visit to the Crimea in 1825 provided material for his Crimean Sonnets.

  220 Cypris: Venus or Aphrodite.

  221 Bakhchisarai: the reference is to a fountain in the garden of the Crimean Khan's palace. See Pushkin's narrative poem 'The Fountain of Bakhchisarai'.

  Zarma: the jealous wife of the Khan, one of the heroines in Pushkin's poem 'The Fountain of Bakhchisarai'.

  222 Morali: (or Moor Ali): apparently a Moorish seaman or pirate, whom Pushkin met during his stay in Odessa.

  Tumnsky: a minor poet who served along with Pushkin as a clerk to the governor of Odessa.

  225 Automne: Csar Automne, a well-known restaurateur in Odessa.

  226 Ausonia: Italy.

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