With Pushkin

In a snowy evening:

This comes to pass in the wee hours of January 29, 1837, a day after Pushkin’s death – I’m all alone in this vast land of melting snow, where everything seems to merge into oblivion. Lying on my back I gaze at the starry sky.

My name is Lev Aleksandrovich. Lev, which means lion in Russian, is also called Leo – just as Bill is Williams in English. But for Pushkin I was always the ‘little son’. I am myself a lad, born into this hectic world exactly a decade ago, left to loneliness while elders attend to the business at hand: Pushkin’s funeral.

They take in Alexander Pushkin – Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, to be exact – to be the greatest Russian writer ever born. To me all the same, he was still a dear uncle who had a lot of stories to share with me. Involuntarily I recall what he used to tell me during our stargazing hours.

I’m looking forward to seeing two time travellers: Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak, both mainstream Russian writers in a later period. They are traveling all the way backwards, to pay last honours to a lifeless corpse.

And then I would realize there’s more to this man, than I could ever know and think of.

* * *

“No one in my large family wrote poetry. But I remember they talk of an aunt of my grandfather called Anna Burnina. She is the first Russian poetess.”

Anna Akhmatova broached the conversation; both Boris and I checked the embers. The samovar, a metal urn for making tea, is close by for easy reach.

“Well, in my case I was born into a family with a lot of artiste-acquaintances. My father Leonid Pasternak was a professor of art and sculpture, and my mother a concert pianist. Leo Tolstoy used to frequent our home. So did many others.” Boris mused as if speaking to himself.

I study their faces. Noticing my curious silence, Boris added:

“We should tell this boy who his uncle is, shouldn’t we Anna?”

My uncle! Yes he was great. His death seems so strange to me. He was injured following a duel he had with his brother in law Georges d’Anthes. And two days later, he passed on. Georges had a scandalous affair with Pushkin’s wife. Not only that, but my uncle was humiliated by the Tsar’s ruling too. I have this weird feeling that the government was scared of my uncle.

“Your uncle, Alexander Pushkin, is the founder of modern Russian literature.” Boris’ voice pulled me out of thoughts.

“And he is the greatest Russian poet ever,” Anna said in a low tone, “he composed his first poem at 15.”

“He wrote a novel too. Eugene Onegin.” Boris said.

“That was in verse too.” Anna sauted the fact.

The time travelers speak in fluent yet heavily-accented English – they have chosen to speak in English despite the fact that I’m a Russian too. Their English sounds more modern than the one I’m familiar with. Fluent speakers of English are a rarity in our nation. Russians are a lucky lot not to have suffered being a colony.

“There are other poets too in this era. Why, this one in particular?”

But then thoughts crowded in my mind. Everyone can be a poet, having written down what they feel. But most of them are just cerebral, as my father once said in Pushkin’s presence. This recollection makes it easier to understand what Boris says.

“Pushkin is a pioneer. You can call him a trendsetter.”

“What I love in him is that he could use the local dialect fluently. He could get closer to the common peasant. Thankfully our culture had only a little of foreign influence.” Anna explained.

“Exactly. I think that explains him a lot. He was always rooted to the soil. That may be why Bolsheviks saw him as an opponent to bourgeois literature. But unfortunately it took a worse turn.” Boris said.

Anyone against the tide will have to face the music. I was old enough to understand that reality. At least that’s what I understand with my uncle’s premature death.

“He was interested more in being radical reformist type. He was using all his genres, poetry, novel and playwriting, to let out his frustration on the social order.” Boris carried on.

“But did it work?” I asked.

“Well, not wonders though. He could not change the order, and apparently you cannot do it overnight. But he caused some uproar…”

“He had the capacity, Boris. I think Pushkin is the Russian Shakespeare. He had a rich vocabulary and used it in a very sensitive style. That established the modern Russian literature for us. And yes, he is our father. He is the father of Russian literature.” Anna said.

“True. His life was so brief, but his influence is larger than life. Lyric poetry, narrative poetry, novel, short story drama and critical essays, he set a new trend in all this. That formed the style of Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov and Leo Tolstoy and even Nikolai Gogol.”

Drop by drop tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened to them. Pushkin, my dear uncle, that snowy evening creeps in inch by inch. I remember you held me tight to your chest and I was listening to your poem. And now I wonder if you really meant it.

When I look at a solitary oak

I think: the patriarch of the woods.

It will outlive my forgotten age

As it outlived that of my

Grandfathers’.

If I caress a young child,

Immediately I think: farewell!

I will yield my place to you,

For I must fade while your flower

Blooms. [trans: G R Ledger]

- Sachitra and Samodh

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