https://youtu.be/3WK8Ae3YDs4?si=QxJFKMk_GVWFSe19
Why Is Pushkin the Most Influential Writer in Russia?
Fiction Beast
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Alexander Pushkin is considered the father of Russian Literature, the Shakespeare of Russia whose poetry captured the spirit of Russia, who influenced subsequent writers like Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. His most famous work is Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse. Today I will answer the following questions.
Who was Pushkin? What’s Eugene Onegin about? I will summarise it and discuss its major themes. I will also answer how and why Pushkin captured the imagination of the Russian people.
Pushkin also posed a few interesting questions, such as: is human existence nothing but a contradiction? Do we all want happiness or struggle and anguish? And Are smart, learned people really stupid and less happy because they suppress their natural inclinations? At the end I will read one of his most famous poems that nearly all Russians know by heart.
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🕔Time Stamps🕔
00:00 Intro
01:34 Pushkin's Life
04:55 Eugene Onegin Summary
18:05 Theme: Fiction in real life
19:17 City vs Country
22:28 Suffering
23:24 Pushkin's Spell on Russia
26:03 Poem "To***"
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Intro
No writer is more dear to the Russians than this man. He was the Grandson of an African
man, but also a playboy, a brat, arrogant man who spoke better French than Russian,
to make his French connection even more interesting, he was killed by a French man in a duel. Most importantly this man invented a new literary Russian language that was more precise, clearer and simpler which made him the poet of the Russian people.
The Tsar loved him, so did the Soviet leaders like Lenin and Stalin and Tchaikovsky, the greatest Russian composer wrote an opera based on his work.
Alexander Pushkin is considered the father of Russian Literature, the Shakespeare of
Russia whose poetry captured the spirit of Russia, who influenced subsequent writers
like Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. His most famous work is Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse. Today I will answer the following questions.
Who was Pushkin?
What’s Eugene Onegin about?
I will summarise it and discuss its major themes.
I will also answer how and why Pushkin captured the imagination of the Russian people. Pushkin also posed a few interesting questions, such as:
is human existence nothing but a contradiction?
- Do we all want happiness or struggle and anguish?
- And Are smart, learned people really stupid
- and less happy because they suppress their natural inclinations?
At the end I will read one of his most famous poems that nearly all Russians know by heart.
somewhat subconsciously predicted in his own masterpiece.
Author Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow in 1799
Pushkin's Life
into an aristocratic family, somewhat similar to the English romantic poet, Lord Byron,
whom Pushkin admired very much.
Pushkin’s great grandfather was Ibrahim Gannibal, an army general, born in modern-day
Cameroon, but kidnapped as a child by the Ottomans and later gifted to the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great.
He grew up to become one of the highest ranking Russian generals. So
Pushkin was very proud of his African ancestry and depicted it in his short story, “The
Moor of Peter the Great” and also a poem titled “My Genealogy”.
Pushkin grew up in and around Saint-Petersburg.
He was educated primarily in French like all the Russian aristocrats at the time. At a young age, he showed great talent in writing.
His French education allowed him to read Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. As a result he acquired a liberal attitude towards social change. His radical social activities were flagged
to the government and he was pushed out of Saint-Petersburg, so he travelled to the south,
the Caucuses, the Crimea and Moldova, where he became a freemason and later got himself
involved in the Greek revolution against the Ottoman Turks. But when he found himself in
Odessa, he seduced the governor’s wife, so the Russian authorities forced him back
to his family estate.
This exile or house arrest allowed him to focus on his poetry,
the solitude and isolation he needed to cultivate his craft of writing poetry of longing and loneliness.
This is a lesson, if you want to be a writer with deep thoughts, you ought
to live in isolation for a bit, so you can travel deeper inside your own psyche or the
subconscious.
In 1825, there was a coup against the government which became known as the Decembrist Revolt, in which many Russian aristocrats rebelled against the Tsar but failed. Pushkin was implicated through one of his poems, so he was summoned to Moscow. But this proved to be a reversal of fortune. The Tsar was very impressed with the young Pushkin’s honesty and immediately employed him as a special advisor in the National Archive, perhaps a clever ploy to keep the man silent. During this period, he met the Polish national poet, Adam Mickiewicz whose
epic, Pan Tadeuz I discussed a while back, who was also exiled to Russia due to his political
activities in Poland which was under the Russian rule at the time.
In 1828, Pushkin met Natalia Goncharova, one of the most beautiful ladies in Russia who
was 16 at the time. Three years later they were married. Here is a twist of fate.
- Pushkin throughout his bachelor life, seduced and slept with many women, often someone else’s wife.
- Now he was married to a beauty. Guess what happened? Other young men pursued her,
- so Pushkin had to face the same fate he had inflicted on others.
- A French man pursued Natalia and Pushkin challenged him to a duel, in which he was wounded. Two days later, in 1837, Pushkin died, aged 37.
This image of Pushkin is carved into the Russian psyche.
The young poet was dead, his beautiful wife a widow and Russia was without its greatest
writer.
Now I will summarise Pushkin’s masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, which bizarrely has a duel in it which results in the death of a young poet.
Did Pushkin predict his own death?
Eugene Onegin Summary
Summary of Eugene Onegin Евгений Оне́гин or Eugene Onegin
is a novel in verse published in 1837, which Pushkin wrote between 1825 and 1832, taking him almost 8 years.
Pushkin wrote it in Onegin verse which he developed and now named after
the book. Its protagonist is Eugene or Evgeny, the first and the most important Russian character who
is known as the superfluous man, someone who lives in his head, a bit sentimental, romantic
or someone who thinks a lot yet unable to enact on his ideas or fails to achieve his
life’s goals. I have discussed this in great detail in my other videos, especially in the
prose works of Turgenev and Dostoevsky.
At the heart of the novel is this fundamental question,
- what’s the purpose of life?
- Is it happiness? / Is it achieving your goal?
- Or is it a perpetual struggle?
- Is it passion in the form of love? Or death?
The narrative focuses on four people, two men and two sisters, from the Russian high
society, all educated and cultured. Eugene is a 26-year old man who belongs to Saint-Petersburg’s
high society, whose enormous wealth and good looks put him at the top of Russian society so he looks down on most people. But you know when you have it all, you experienced it,
now it’s harder to get fulfillment from things in life.
Since he’s seen or experienced
plenty of parties and a glamorous life, he gets bored very easily. He questions life,
what’s the point of it all
He’s a cynical man, the opposite of Dostoevsky’s Idiot Prince Myshkin, who is naive and innocent. I think Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot in response to Eugene Onegin, to depict blind faith or Don Quixote type character.
Eugene is a Hamlet type character who questions everything.
Sick of the city life, Eugene decides to move to the country estate that his uncle has left
him. There he meets a young and naive poet, Vladimir Lenin…oops, Vladimir Lensky from a neighboring estate, who daydreams about his romantic fantasies. The young poet, Vladimir, incidentally educated in Germany where he must have read Goethe’s The Sorrow of Young erther, published in 1774, some 25 years before Pushkin was born, the most romantic works of German literature.
Vladimir is engaged to be married to Olga, a bubbly and happy-go-lucky kind of girl who
doesn’t think very deeply, but she has a sister, Tatyana who is the opposite, very
quiet, thoughtful, yet deeply romantic and passionate on the inside.
Vladimir invites Eugene to meet his fiancé, Olga and her sister Tatyana. Now we have all
four of them together in the house. Two boys and two girls. Vladimir and his fiancé’s
older sister, Tatyana are romantic and passionate people, while Eugene and Olga are less romantic.
You know what happens.
The quiet Tatyana falls in love with the city boy Eugene. But she is too shy to talk to
him directly, so she gathers all her courage to write a love letter confessing her romantic
feelings for the Saint-Petersburg man. It’s an incredibly beautiful moment, as she dreads
writing the letter. Here’s what she says: …
To see you by our fireside stand, To listen to the words you speak,
Address to you one single phrase And then to meditate for days
Of one thing till again we met. …
Why did you visit our poor place? Forgotten in the village lone,
I never should have seen your face …
Imagine! Here alone am I! No one my anguish comprehends,
At times my reason almost bends, And silently I here must die—
But I await thee: scarce alive My heart with but one look revive;
Or to disturb my dreams approach Alas! with merited reproach.
When she finishes her letter, she says:
’Tis finished. Horrible to read! With shame I shudder and with dread—
Eugene has seen plenty so he’s not swayed by a country girl’s romantic confession,
so he ignores her letter. Here Pushkin masterfully contrasts a cynical man’s reaction to something so incredibly tender by a young woman.
His self-righteousness is summed up in a saying
which has become a very popular proverb in Russian. Мой дядя самых честных
правил, which basically means my uncle knows it all. Or my uncle is a self-righteous
man.
Tatyana is heartbroken. She tries to get an answer but Eugene keeps pushing her away as
if she is a naive country girl. But as time passes she gathers her courage and talks to
him directly. This is another tender moment, Tatyana is trembling with fear and nervousness as she tells him.
Oh boy, how naive she is.
Not only Eugene rejects her, he also adds salt to the injury by giving her a famous speech or it is known as Onegin’s sermon
in which he tells Tatyana that her love is cute but no thank you, resolutely saying that
he is not interested in love or marriage.
Eugene doesn’t stop there, he also advises Tatyana to forget her romantic fantasies and
naivety and that she should live in reality. He tells her that if she continues to fall
in love with men, someone might take advantage of her blind passion to destroy her.
The age of rationality has arrived in Russia. There is a Russian saying: Любовь зла – полюбишь и козла, which means Love is evil – it will make you fall in love with a goat, in other words a playboy.
Meanwhile, Vladimir still hopes to see Eugene and Tatyana together so he prepares a party,
and invites the city boy. A few days before this party, Tatyana has a nightmare, in which
she is chased by a bear, symbolizing the cold of rationality, so she takes refuge in a country
hut where Eugene has a party only to find it full of goblins and demons. Eugene comes
to her rescue only to stab Vladimir with a knife. Tatyana wakes up, terrified. This is
a bad premonition.
Now in real life, Vladimir tells Eugene that the party is small, only a family gathering,
but when Eugene shows up, he realizes it is a mediocre country ball. Eugene has seen so
many great parties and balls, much more grander in his home town Saint-Petersburg that this little party means absolutely nothing to him.
Vladimir’s sneaky plan annoys him. Eugene gets more annoyed with the country people who gossip about him and Tatyana.
Eugene decides to teach Vladimir, a young country boy, a lesson.
Here Pushkin contrasts the sincerity of the country people with the cynicism of a city
man who looks down on these beautiful country souls.
Eugene, instead of finding the people more endearing, is too absorbed in his own vanity and embarrassment.
Not only that Eugene goes further in stabbing his friend behind his back and also to teach the man a lesson by seducing Vladimir’s fiancé, Olga,
which turns out to be incredibly easy as she is totally gullible while dancing with the sophisticated man of Saint-Petersburg.
Since we are in 19th century Russia, Vladimir challenges his friend Eugene to a duel.
At first, Eugene laughs at this. A country boy?
But he has to accept because his pride is on the line. It turns out to be an easy job, Eugene shoots and kills the young poet.
Years later, Pushkin, himself a young poet, is the victim of the same fate, a duel in which he dies. Perhaps somewhere in his own subconscious, he saw that coming.
But for Eugene, the experience is transformative.
He is now a different man from the Eugene before the duel.
As we saw in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, too, when Bazarov injures his enemy in a duel, his whole nihilistic ideology crumbles.
By killing his friend, Eugene kills his own old self, or past self.
Eugene decides to distract himself by leaving not only the country estate, but also leaving mother Russia to travel abroad. In his absence, Tatyana, who sees him as an enigma, visits
Eugene’s house to understand the mysterious and cold-blooded man who rejected her love.
Inside the house she finds plenty of books which Eugene left behind, with plenty of notes.
She reads them and realizes that Eugene is in fact an amalgamation of his literary heroes,
just like Don Quixote whose reading transformed him into an insane knight. She realizes that
Eugene is not a real person but someone transformed through his own readings that have filled his head.
He is nothing but a misanthrope whose head is filled with little impressions
he read in books. In other words, Eugene is like a walking bookshelf that contains everything from the ancient world to the modern. A bogeyman or a tragic joke who is nothing but made of little dust of whims and impressions of other writers. In other words he has no solid core.
A fake. An imitation. I have to be honest it did make a bit self-conscious because I
have read a lot of books and sometimes I do feel I have lost myself. So Pushkin was right.
You are the sum of those around you if you have friends or the sum of all the books you
read if you don’t have any friends which is true in my case. Here Pushkin also takes
a swipe at the pretentious city people who are fake in everything they do. But he is
also critical of himself as Eugene is somewhat similar to himself, a learned man who ruined
people’s marriages and never stopped seducing other men’s wives.
Not only that, Tatyana doubts her own love. Perhaps she doesn’t love the real Eugene,
but the persona of someone shaped by all the books he has read. As Proust said, when we
fall in love with someone, we fall in love with that person as imagined by us. Not the
real, physical person, but how they are represented in our imagination. And that’s why we fall
out of love once we understand them more.
Now the first part is over. Eugene rejects Tatyana, not only that, he also kills her
brother-in-law, Vldimir, leaving Tatyana’s sister, Olga without a husband. Now in part
two, Pushkin reverses it all. It’s time to take revenge on Eugene, the cruel city
boy.
Time passes, days turn into months and then years. Now we’re back in Saint-Petersburg
in the most lavish ball in Russia where men with the biggest balls are attending the biggest
ball. Eugene notices a fairy like lady dancing in the pool of everyone’s attention. Who
could it be? Eugene is curious. It’s of course, the country girl he rejected years
ago. She has risen the ranks to take revenge? Perhaps. It’s of course, Tatyana who is
now married to a prominent Russian prince and a big-shot army general.
As the saying goes, you only want things you cannot have. Eugene’s obsession with Tatyana
starts to grow bigger and bigger. Now the table has turned. It’s Tatyana who pushes
Eugene away. He sends her love letters and she ignores. He chases her and she tells him
no, but no thank you, by showing her ring. “I’m married.” The more she says no,
the more he wants her. Eugene tells her, “Let’s run away, to somewhere nobody knows us.”
She thinks for two seconds and says “Nah.”
Eugene’s persistence finally has a result, but it is not what he wants. Tatyana says
she loved him but…there is that famous, dreadful but in all romantic tales. She says
that ship has sailed, because she’s married to another man. Now here, Tatyana does the
same as Eugene did all those years ago.
Quote:
“Onegin, I was younger then, And better, if I judge aright;
I loved you—what did I obtain? Affection how did you requite?
But with austerity!—for you No novelty—is it not true?—
Was the meek love a maiden feels. But now—my very blood congeals,
Calling to mind your icy look And sermon—but in that dread hour
I blame not your behaviour— An honourable course ye took,
Displayed a noble rectitude— My soul is filled with gratitude!
“’Twas possible then, happiness— Nay, near—but destiny decreed—
My lot is fixed—with thoughtlessness It may be that I did proceed—
With bitter tears my mother prayed, And for Tattiana, mournful maid,
Indifferent was her future fate. I married—now, I supplicate—
For ever your Tattiana leave. Your heart possesses, I know well,
Honour and pride inflexible. I love you—to what end deceive?—
But I am now another’s bride— For ever faithful will abide.”
She rose—departed. But Eugene Stood as if struck by lightning fire.
What a storm of emotions keen Raged round him and of balked desire!
And hark! the clank of spurs is heard And Tatyana’s husband soon appeared.—
She gives a sermon or a speech in which she
tells him that she has no desire to break her promise to her husband. The rational,
sensible speech Eugene gave years ago, now bites him in the ears. She tells him, he better
forget it all. Russian women stay loyal. More importantly, country women stay loyal. She
walks away, leaving Eugene to ponder over his life’s choices.
He failed in his only romantic pursuit to make him officially the first Russian superfluous
man, whose ideas in his head interfere with his quest, either romantic or ideological.
Later Russian superfluous men would fail in their love but also fail in their ideological
missions, until Vladimir Lenin finally breaks that spell in 1917 to turn Russia into a socialist
Theme: Fiction in real life
state.
Analysis Fiction in real life: Don Quixote by Cervantes, and Madame Bovary by Flaubert, and Eugene Onegin by Pushkin all have one element in common. What you read impacts you in ways you don’t even realize. Writers throughout
the world have understood that reading shapes your personality, outlook and even your life’s
decisions. Eugene was a product of his world, which also includes his literary world. He
read a lot of romantic narratives, admired many heroes and tried to live his life just
like them. I think Pushkin shows that our ideas about love, life, happiness and success
can sometimes lead us astray. Eugene thought he knew better when he rejected Tatyana. But
later, as time passed, he understood how much he had miscalculated her. By the time he realizes
his mistake, it is of course too late. And that makes this a masterpiece. Now the biggest
irony of all is Pushkin’s own life. He was killed in a duel just like Vladimir was. Why?
Because he pursued and slept with many married women, but finally it was another man who
pursued Pushkin’s own wife who killed him. So what goes round, comes around.
City vs Country
City vs country: One of the central theme in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin is whether smart
and learned people lose out in the long run? Eugene is a rationally smart man who rejects
human nature and passion by rationally analysing it as idiotic. He rejects Tatyana’s love
as something stupid. In other words, Pushkin tells us Eugene has seen plenty which means
he’s like a damaged good. His learning has made him to misjudge things, his prejudice
blinds him to his natural instinct, and city life has damaged his natural intuition. In
other words, once seen, it cannot be unseen. Knowing too much makes one to be cynical and
never happy. Tatyana, however embraces her nature, her passion and her honesty in living
within her natural inclinations. Her naive love makes her unhappy but for Pushkin that’s
more admirable because she embraces her natural intuition. We are meant to suffer in life.
There is no way you can avoid it. So you might as well suffer while being true to your nature,
authentic and brave in embracing your natural passion. Eugene thinks by being smart he wouldn’t
suffer, but at the end he’s miserable, because he fought against his natural passion in favour
of reason. Tatyana doesn’t fight her natural romantic inclination, while Eugene’s learning
and urban experiences have made him smart in the head, but an idiot in the heart. He’s
a superfluous man who lives in inauthentic existence, mostly in his head while ignoring
those around him as well as his own natural instincts. This makes you unhappy, bitter
and cynical. Dostoevsky in all his novels tried to show that knowing too much, seeing
too much and questioning too much, make you miserable in the long run.
Tatyana is the symbol of country people, who remains sincere, passionate and loyal, no
matter what is thrown at her. Eugene’s superficiality means he gets bored quickly, because he is
not fulfilled on the inside. I think Pushkin tries to show that outside comfort is never
enough, you want more and more. Inner comfort is important. Onegin’s rational speech about
romantic passion is cold and cruel. His duel with Vladimir also exposes the societal conventions
of the time dictating his life. Rousseau said that man is born free but tainted by society.
Pushkin takes this even further saying not only society but what you also read or consume
that come from outside your own culture. Eugene values his romantic heroes, Byron in particular.
His cynical view of others make him selfish and indifferent to others. Pushkin contrasts
the warmth of the country with the cold of the city. However, Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov
and Ivan, both influenced by outside ideas coming from the west question Russian orthodox
values and traditions, so this takes a more nationalistic tone. Russia was modernizing
at the time, so people were attracted to the shiny things coming from Western Europe. This
was making people more selfish, superficial and insincere. Pushkin and later Dostoevsky
showed the negative side of modernity in making people more empty and fake.
Suffering: There is no Russian novel in which suffering
Suffering
is not a central theme. According to Dostoevsky, Pushkin’s poetry shows that the Russian
people do not look for happiness, but instead they look for a struggle. Russian literature
is not an escape from reality but taking us deeper into reality, digging deeper into the
inner psyche of our existentialist suffering. The harsh, cold, and inhospitable climate
requires people to be real, to embrace reality, no matter how horrible or unpleasant. When
your survival is at stake, it’s important to know the bitter truth, rather than sweet
lies. Eugene Onegin is a tale of struggle. How do you find love? When to say yes to love?
And when to say no to love? And most importantly live with the consequences of your decision,
good or bad. Russians don’t seek happiness, but struggle.
Pushkin's Spell on Russia
Pushkin’s Spell on Russia Pushkin’s poetry captured the imagination
of generations of Russian readers, for the simple reason that his language is incredibly
simple, which is only possible if you have a clarity of mind. Another important fact
to know is that he was educated in French, so his Russian was not as refined as his French
in his early years, but this allowed him to write in a kind of bare-bone Russian, raw,
honest, and precise. Not some fluffy, jumbled literary language, but simple. His outsider’s
approach helped him remove the fluffy and sentimental aspects of the language and make
it as bare-bone as possible
Pushkin was not a nice man in that he pursued many married women but never committed to
them. He was a playboy prince who couldn’t have enough of women. But he lived an authentic
life. His noble social status allowed him to be true to himself. This authenticity gave
him a clear voice to express his inner passion and feelings as simply as possible. Just remember
that being part of the aristocracy meant there was a huge amount of pressure on him to tone
things down, or contain what he wrote, but he ignored the outside world and instead trusted
his gut feelings and inner voice to tell the truth. To express his inner poetry with clarity
and precision. I have talked about honesty being one of the most defining features of
Russian literature and it all begins with Pushkin. He never shied away from being incredibly
self-critical and those around him. He turned his observation about himself and the world
into beautiful poems.
Another reason he has remained immortal is that he captures one of the biggest contradictions
of human existence. We all seek happiness. We all seek peace, yet at the same time, we
cannot avoid conflict, on the outside but also on the inside. Pushkin understood that
on the surface we all want peace and happiness. But if you peel back layers and get to the
bottom of human existence, we seek discomfort, chaos, anguish and conflict. He tapped into
his inner voice to articulate this existential contradiction, between comfort and discomfort,
between love and loss, between peace and conflict, between beauty and sadness. We humans need
both. We humans love rules but also unruliness. It was Dostoevsky who said that Pushkin captures
that Russian desire, not for happiness, but struggle. I think we want happiness but also
deep down crave for that struggle. Human life is a contradiction, and Pushkin’s Eugene
Onegin is a great example of that contradiction.
Now, I will read Pushkin’s most famous poem To *** translated by Andrey Kneller, which
Poem "To***" almost all Russians can recite.
It was written in 1825 when he was exiled to the country estate where he spent time in solitude.
It’s believed Pushkin wrote it about his love Anna Kern or some other woman:
To ***
I still recall the wondrous moment:
When you appeared before my sight As though a brief and fleeting omen,
Pure phantom in enchanting light. In sorrow, when I felt unwell,
Caught in the bustle, in a daze, I fell under your voice’s spell
And dreamt the features of your face. Years passed and gales had dispelled
My former hopes, and in those days, I lost your voice’s sacred spell,
The holy features of your face. Detained in darkness, isolation,
My days began to drag in strife. Without faith and inspiration,
Without tears, and love and life. My soul attained its waking moment:
You re-appeared before my sight, As though a brief and fleeting omen,
Pure phantom in enchanting light.
And now, my heart, with fascination,
Beats rapidly and finds revived Devout faith and inspiration,
And tender tears and love and life.
Thank you!
======================================================
132 Comments
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@gracefitzgerald2227
3 years ago
We’re your friends. Thankfully you read these beautiful books and help us understand them. A lot of times I’d rather hang out with an Oscar Wilde or Marcel Proust, than go out with Jen for a coffee, or a Tina for a glass of wine. Definitely will always listen to your interpretation of a beautiful piece of literary magic. Thank you as always.
88
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Fiction Beast
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5 replies
@dimus63
3 years ago (edited)
One of important reasons why Pushkin is so important for Russians is his fairy tales. His nun, a simple village woman told him her stories and then he reimagined them as poems, rebuilding them into a magical beauty. They are rich, poweful, but also simple in their language, so that 4-5 year olds can not only understand them, but also fall in love with them, learn them by heart, and return to them through all their lives for support and solace.
101
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@geraldmeehan8942
3 years ago
Thank you for yet another tremendous episode!
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@Richard-j1k1v
1 year ago
Great stuff. Thanks for the educational knowledge about this man and his work. I'm amazed at how powerfully the poem hits you when translated in English. His use of words strike you powerfully so that you feel the force of them long after you hear the poem. They stand like physical objects in front of you that cannot be moved, not just words or feelings. Amazing stuff. Thank you so much. Peace and love
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@pattidean4109
2 years ago
I'm glad I found your channel. I love Russian literature and have read many Russian novels but I've never had anyone to discuss them with. Listening to your videos is the next best thing. I consider you my friend. Thanks!
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Fiction Beast
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1 reply
@kasialeparska2480
2 years ago
Excellent review; 👌
thank you for your hard work, very much appreciated! 👍🌹
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@anuradhatiwari85
3 years ago
One of the best Chanel regarding literature ..you deserve millions of subscriber ...
12
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Fiction Beast
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1 reply
@ML-rz2hb
3 years ago
You do an excellent job with your various subjects, and I really like your voice.
20
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Fiction Beast
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2 replies
@samikshakumari9783
2 years ago
I'll definitely read this novel now..your way of explaining things is superb, this makes me to buy and read more and more novels...😅...thank you so much for this wonderful video.
4
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@michaelcondry1493
1 year ago
man i am glad to have stumbled across your channel. warm wishes from Massachusetts, USA ! i just finished Eugene and am loving this video
1
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@tlhInganHol
2 years ago
Pushkin is a follower of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, it was they who greatly influenced him. Pushkin's creativity is not limited to one work "Onegin", he left a lot of poems and prose as a legacy. He admired others. And people admired him, he became famous during his lifetime. On the other hand, he was a gambler and left his wife in debt after his death (her story ended well, don't worry). He treated his homeland with tenderness, for example, in the poem "to Chaadaev" he hopefully believes in better times. Or the poem "village" (I do not know if its translation into English is so good, but you can copy and translate the poem in Google). Russians want to believe, and they find confirmation of their thoughts in the works of A.S. Pushkin.
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@lilyghassemzadeh
3 years ago
I have recently found and subscribed to your channel. I admire your minute perspectives on the great novels of the world that are so deep that usually are not readily understood. Thank you.
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Fiction Beast
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1 reply
@kyrill3341
10 months ago
No friends??? Dude you make the best videos about Literature, love listening to your videos after reading a book! You would definitely be an awesome friend you can have the best types of conversations with!!
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@danielpetrov3618
2 years ago
never thought I'd have any interest in russian literature. I'm gonna go ahead and watch your other videos as well while I'm at it I guess
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@Vikingvideos50
2 years ago
A very good video! Many thanks for this.
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Fiction Beast
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1 reply
@bertBdv5
3 years ago
Thanks for the video! <3 (You are never alone mate)
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Fiction Beast
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1 reply
@MCGaar
3 years ago
It’s like most things in life. We need a balance between the happiness and struggle although we lazily prefer happiness almost always.
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@eliaspanou1049
3 years ago
You do an amazing job with literature. It would be amazing to see you cover the Beat Generation, that would be such a cool video! I love your content
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@saveaprayerforme
1 year ago
I recently discovered your channel as I was reading Pushkin's drama Boris Godunov and I was really interested in getting to know his ideals regarding life. This is a really good video, very detailed but also covers the most important things for someone wanting to understand his writing. New subscriber!
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@ebongo1
3 months ago
His Grand father was from Cameroon 🇨🇲 🔥🔥🔥
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@tiendunghoang9823
3 years ago
Somehow this video get recommended unexpectedly, might have been because I googled for Eugene Onegin. Seems nice but I haven't watched it yet, did saved to my documentary playlist though, might watch it fully after I finish Pushkin's work. I'm trying to learn Russian to read literature right now, reading EO in original Russian alongside with Nabokov's translation and commentary. Good luck with your channel I guess
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@MechAnkylosaurus6812
3 months ago (edited)
Died in a duel for honor of his wife . He introduced controversies and contrafiction but stays among greatest of all time and most renowned of all nations
Contradiction filled and still do fill life and world drawing towards a sure end
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@3001TheDiego
3 years ago
Another great video. Looking forward for the next one. Also, you could explore more the work of Shakespeare, I would like to hear your thoughts about Hamlet.
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@jesussanchezherrero5659
3 years ago (edited)
Looking forward to having it on Spotify🎉
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@tatyana5037
3 years ago
Thank you very much for the video! I accidentaly got on your channel, and I am very impressed by the depth and the thoroughness of your analysis.
Eugene Onegin is a masterpiece of russian literature, which is studied in schools, but not so many people truly understand it's meaning, preferring superficial understanding of it as a tragic love story or a story of the so-called "superfluos man" (very popular archetype in russian 19th century literature - for example, among Onegin is also Bazarov in "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev and Pechorin in "Hero of our time" by Lermontov). "Eugene Onegin" is, how it was called by russian criticist and writer Belinskiy "encyclopedia of russian life", one of the books, which truly represent our culture and try to analyze such themes as conflicts between city and suburb, tradition and modern life, eastern and western. The structure of the poem is simple, yet is touching on a deepest level. And without Puskin there would be no Tolstoy, no my favourite Dostoyevskiy )
For me this poem also means a lot, as you can see from my name ) The character of Tatyana is one of the first attempts in russian literature to understand women's perspective, which was continued by Tolstoy in "Anna Karenina". She is not perfect, as she is bound with the limits of her time, but the way she behaves, with all that sincerity, cleverness and honor - that is insipiring even now, 2 centuries later.
Thank you again and greetings from Saint Petersburg :)
P.S. I hope that russian literature and russian art in general will not be viewed in different light because of all that darkness that comes from our country right now...
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@Rico-Suave_
1 year ago (edited)
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched all in it 10:26
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@Rico-Suave_
1 year ago (edited)
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched all in it 26:40
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@elibonsatvproduction3629
5 months ago
Lenin derived his Name from, De St Helena or a Dead Hero, Olenin of Cossacks Tolstoy and Len-sky of Pushkin.
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@avadhutagita3741
2 years ago (edited)
Few people know, but Pushkin was a Freemason. Good or bad - decide for yourself.
Pushkin's main achievement is that he brought together the disparate dialects of the Russian into one whole and did it 100%. Pushkin didn't hesitate to call himself a genius in his poetry.
I will tell you as a linguist - if you ever learn Russian and any East Slavic.
Only in Russian you will not find dialects, the language is completely monolithic, literate, words have mathematical accuracy within the framework of figurative representation. Language has really been worked on, and not less than hand of the master. Same can be said about the work of Pushkin.
His works are full of secrets, contain many sacred numbers, symbolic names, and even prophecy.
Russians still don't understand 90% of the mysteries of Pushkin's works and read them as simple texts.
But no one understands this, although almost everyone knows that everything in them is not just like that, arrangement of words, numbers, values, and so on.
You can take books written in Russian for the 18th century in different dialects and read them easily, everything will be clear to you.
Oldest East Slavic words (which are more than 10 centuries old) don't change their morphology only in Russian. Pushkin is respected for the fact that he really understood what he was doing with the language.
Russians love Pushkin, because the main monument to Pushkin is hidden in the Russian.
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@vaibhavnayak5890
3 years ago (edited)
Great video once again. I am seeing Russia is winning the war of literature in your library.😅😅
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@Skolotoi
4 months ago
What about another famous Russian writer, Dimitry Pullkin?
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@ZaneB-z4l
2 years ago
Please do a video on Sergey Esenin 🙏
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@BrightGarlick
3 years ago
Excellent analysis of the great idealist romantic!
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@fatimarajpoot5124
2 years ago
thank you so much for such a brilliant summary. It made me to buy this right now. Can you tell which book will be best translated in English because i cant read in Russian language. What a deep explanation. From Pakistan
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@infinite5795
3 years ago
Thank you dear, I would look to it. Kinda off topic, but can you please do a video on Sanskrit literature, like of Ramayana, Mahabharata or even Romantic novels like Abhigyan Shakuntalam? I would love to explore it.
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@jimaleabdulkarim
1 year ago
"to see you by our fireside stand, to listen to the words you speak, address to you one signe phrase and the to midatate for days, of one thing again till we met"
Which translation did you use? This version is more beautiful than the one I have.
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@theglobe2050
1 year ago
Might be a little late to say, but Adam Mizkevich is mostly Belarusian, though at that time it was hard to define in which category belarusians fit in. I know this because i love Belarusian literature, it's not as sad and deep as russian but it feels more diverse. Love your videos anyway
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@jamesbarry1673
5 months ago
He and I shared the same birthday
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@kgilliagorilla2761
7 months ago
Like cell phones at 22:30. Nothing has changed.
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@AvgerinouAna99
3 years ago
Στο τέλος περίμενα να απαγγείλεις το ποίημα του Pushkin στη Ρωσική γλώσσα. Γιατί αυτό που αγαπώ πιο πολύ στον Pushkin είναι η μουσική των στίχων του
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@Insatiableviel007
3 years ago
Please review the Bhagavad Gita sometime. It's very short (only 700 verses) but immensely beautiful. My favourite book ☺️
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@TNT-km2eg
2 years ago
It is not only Russians who like him
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@etcetera3282
2 years ago (edited)
You know what...Pushkin's lineage is not in Cameron. In fact I'm from that African country where Pushkin's ancestor, Alexander came from and the country is Eritrea. And this has been proved through historical documentation without a shred of doubt. And few years back, together with the Russian gov't and Pushkin siblings, our gov't erected a statue of Pushkin in the center of the capital city, Asmara.
Just to give you a bit of the real story: Pushkin's ancestor was kidnapped by the Ottamans, who were at the time occupying the eastern part of what's today Eritrea, along the Red Sea. Pushkin's ancestor, Alexander was so handsome and intelligent as a kid and the Ottamans decided to take him away...and then one of the Ottaman kings handed Alexander to the Tsar of Russia, where he proved to be a great General and surpassed all expectations in the army of the Tsar. He became so trusted and loved by the Tsar and was made a proper citizen of Russia...etc.
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@elibonsatvproduction3629
5 months ago
A man is a Historical being or He imitates others. Or A man is a copy cat, his appearance and personal history.
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@vel769
3 years ago
Amazing interpretations. Thank you so much. Hearty wishes from Tamilnadu, India. where the longest novel of world literature is written. ( Venmurasu- 26000 pages )
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@Brunodomini
2 years ago
Fascinating lectures, the two I have listened to so far. But please: speak more slowly. Some words are blurred.
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@archangecamilien1879
3 years ago
13:39 lol, I know someone who is a little too weird to just be a consequence of his readings, but, yeah, he has asked myself if certain things he's done haven't been influenced by said readings, lol...though, more "how" he did them, rather than that he did them at all...but, lol, as for ideas, ways of thinking, I think back in the day he was likely more influenced by them than he is presently...like, lol, they might have shaped how he thought about certain things, patriotism, bravery, etc, especially, especially 19th century novels did that...
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@benwherlock9869
3 years ago
How does it rhyme in English when it was written in Russian?
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@nikkivenable1856
3 years ago
"Men with the biggest balls are attending the biggest ball." I see what you did there, FB! LOL!
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@tiverton
3 years ago (edited)
When one becomes the butt of rumor,
It's hard to bear (as you well know)
When men of reason and good humor
Perceive you as freak on show,
Or as a sad and raving creature,
A monster of Satanic feature,
Or even Demon of my pen.
Eugene (to speak of him again),
Who'd killed his friend for satisfaction,
Who in an aimless, idle fix
Had reached the age of twenty-six,
Annoyed with leisure and inaction,
Without position, work, or wife -
Could find no purpose for his life.
Предметом став суждений шумных,
Несносно (согласитесь в том)
Между людей благоразумных
Прослыть притворным чудаком,
Или печальным сумасбродом,
Иль сатаническим уродом,
Иль даже Демоном моим.
Онегин (вновь займуся им),
Убив на поединке друга,
Дожив без цели, без трудов
До двадцати шести годов,
Томясь в бездействии досуга
Без службы, без жены, без дел,
Ничем заняться не умел.
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@hichamboulos1155
3 years ago
Can you please discuss Gibran Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet"? You will find it to be in alignment with the Bible, Nietzsche, and the great minds of nineteenth-century thinkers. Thank you.
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@ByciclesVan
9 months ago
did the wife sleep with the killer after?
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@Carl88-p5n
3 years ago
You seems to be a very interesting person. Strange that you do not have friends :/
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@박이쥔
1 year ago
In fact, Pushkin was Korean, he came to Russia when he was a child, we can see the characteristics of Koreans from his poetry, poor Pushkin died before he could return to Korea😢
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@user-fj5nn1il5v
3 years ago
Puszki z Rosji aż do wawy
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@Misserbi
2 years ago
Crimea and Moldova are not in the Caucasus?
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@cappy2282
3 years ago
I think the fact that millions voted for Joe Biden tells us that "Yes, most people are idiots"
Im pretty dumb myself...but I'm not that dumb
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@BrightGarlick
3 years ago
You're too hard on yourself M. You reflect the beautiful aspects of many if the worlds reflective people. Friends by proxy!
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@markspano3468
3 years ago
So, today you are nudging me to speak of the Russian zeitgeist. As you say they have a value that seeks authenticity in the life of the folk or narod. Country folk seem to have a deeper sense of value compared to the flighty city people. This, though, is only a stone's throw to anti-intellectualism. We must never forget that this kind of focus on "folk" values is at the heart of every modern fascist movement I can think of.
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@j0nnyism
2 years ago
The question to be asked is why the west doesn’t do Pushkin
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@Vanboomer
1 year ago (edited)
I am a teacher of the Russian language and literature, and what I have just heard is nonsense.
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@ReligionOfSacrifice
3 years ago
And why is it called "To * * *" because we have three names and you are suppose to fill in the blanks.
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@babs420th9
1 year ago
Tchaikovsky the greatest Russian composer? 🙄
Stravinsky
Prokofiev
Rimsky-Korsakov
Shostakovich
Khachaturian
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@טלמנגי
1 year ago
Ethiopia 🇪🇹 noo camron
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@omerlibchik3281
2 years ago
After carefully listening to your speech, I am 99% sure that you, like almost all other living people on this planet, have not really read "Yevgeni Onegin" - you have read some part of it, skipped the most and drew your summary from notes you have found elsewhere. I am saying this with confidence as I myself just finished reading (in Russian!) this entire boredom bomb. This book is an early version of Proust's "temps perdu" in the sense that no human being is capable of reading the entire book without fainting, regardless of the influence the book had on other writers. Pushkin's plot is shallow and can be summarized in 4 pages (just like your summary) but the book contains endless side passages with lengthy boring descriptions and irrelevant comments that everybody skips. Likewise, there is absolutely no resemblance between Onegin and Don Quijote, he does not live in an imaginary world of books like you have said, despite the fact that Tatyana comes to his house and look at his books - so what? The ball in which he later sees her takes place in Moscow, not Saint-Petersburg, he is not seducing Olga in the ball, merely dances with her a little, he is not described as a man who seduces married women in any part of the book and many other inaccuracies indicate to me that you have opened the book, read some famous parts and then looked up a summary to create this video. Don't feel bad, it's really as boring as you have felt while trying to read it.
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@zemietech2003
2 years ago
He is an Eritrean man.
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@pj_ytmt-123
1 year ago
Where is God in this adulterer's writings? Freemason, of course.
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@markcredit6086
3 years ago
Too bad we can't understand what you're saying it probably would have been good
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@munnasport-sx2qe
6 months ago
He was black alot of ppl didn't know that
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