Two Hundred Years Of Pushkin

From his earliest publications onwards Pushkin has been the source of inspiration, and imitation, for other writers, as well as composers, painters and, more recently, film-makers. This book seeks to explore the different relationship his followers have sought with the ‘founding father’ of modern Russian culture. Pushkin’s Secret: Russian Writers Reread and Rewrite Pushkin takes a variety of approaches. Some contributors to the collection trace the way Pushkin’s works provided the template for the characters and stories which were produced in the first decades after his untimely death in 1837. Others reveal the impact the myths surrounding Pushkin’s tragic life were used (and abused) by followers, as well as governments of various hues. Yet other studies explore the very precise ways Pushkin’s successors used his texts as source material for their own works. ‘Pushkin’s Secret’: Russian Writers Reread and Rewrite Pushkin offers a series of fascinating insights into the impact that Alexander Pushkin has had on Russian culture over the last 200 years. Pushkin’s Secret: Russian Writers Reread and Rewrite Pushkin will be followed by two further volumes devoted to Pushkin within the SSLP series, Pushkin: Myth and Monument and Pushkin’s Legacy.

Pushkin's status as Russia's national poet rests as much on the breadth of his cultural influence as on the intrinsic quality of his works. Pushkin's Legacy reflects in various ways the areas in which this influence has been felt. Part I considers some of the key factors in defining Pushkin for posterity, in particular the crucial role played by the critic Belinskii and the problematics of periodising Pushkin. Part II examines the richness of Pushkin's poetics, including the ways in which his work challenged the established boundaries between poetry and prose. Part III examines Russian music's debt to Pushkin and vice versa: Russian music's role in popularising his works. Part IV examines Pushkin's influence abroad via studies of his influence on Mérimée and Henry James and, on a more personal level, through his descendants in England. Pushkin's Legacy offers a variety of approaches to Pushkin and his oeuvre and to the nature of his complex impact on Russian and European culture. Pushkin's Legacy is the third volume devoted to Pushkin to be published in the SSLP series, under the general title Two Hundred Years of Pushkin. It follows volume I, Pushkin's Secret: Russian Writers Reread and Rewrite Pushkin, and volume II, Alexander Pushkin: Myth and Monument.

Puskin's poetry, prose and drama frequently draw upon myths of classical antiquity, myths of modern European culture - grand narratives such as the Don Juan legend and Dante's Inferno - as well as uniquely Russian myths. The contributors to this volume explore these myths from a variety of critical viewpoints and highlight the specific ways in which Pushkin uses myth - among these his recurrent emphasis on the symbolism of monuments and statuary.

Commemorating Pushkin is a study of the fascination with Pushkin that has helped Russian culture define itself, as seen in poems, stories, essays, memoirs, films, museums, and commemorative celebrations.