Oleg, the Sorcerer, and the Two Alexanders (The Political Subtext of Pushkin’s Ballad “The Song of the Wise Oleg”)

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1427-9681.15.18

Keywords:

Alexandеr Pushkin, Nikolai Karamzin, Oleg, ballad, miracle

Abstract

Alexander Pushkin wrote his ballad “The Song of the Wise Oleg” (1822) in Kishinev during his forced administrative presence in the South (1820–1824). The poem retells, with meaningful differences, a legend in Nikolay Karamzin’s History of the Russian State that describes the miraculous death of the Kievan Prince Oleg, who is bitten by a snake hiding in the skull of the hero’s dead horse. The poem was inspired by Pushkin’s visit to Kamenka and Kiev in 1821 and his acquaintance there with the assembled members of the future Decembrist uprising, as well as his visit to the supposed site of Oleg’s grave. An examination of the work in the context of Pushkin’s Southern Text reveals that the poem is an allegory of the poet’s relationship with Alexander I and reflects his fears about the coming political upheaval in Russia and the potential death of the Tsar. The ballad contains the first instance of a motif that becomes familiar in his subsequent work, namely the miracle (chudo) as a sudden, unexpected, and life-changing event. The poetics of the poem represents an important step towards Pushkin’s masterpiece The Comedy of Tsar Boris and Grishka Otrepyev (1825; published in 1831 with the title Boris Godunov).

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Author Biography

J. Douglas Clayton, University of Ottawa, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada

Clayton J. Douglas – профессор Оттавского университета (Канада). Научные интересы: русская литература и русское кино. Из недавних публикаций: Alexander Pushkin’s «Boris Godunov» as Epic Theatre, [в:] History, Memory, Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2015, с. 98–115; From Meyerhold to Eisenstein: Commedia dell’Arte in Russia, [в:] The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte, New York: Routledge 2015, с. 364–369; «Болтовня» – роман – строфа: жанр «Евгения Онегина», [в:] Производство смысла: сборник статей и материалов памяти И. В. Фоменко, Тверь: Тверской гос. ун-т 2018, с. 186–194; Keeping the Candle Aflame: Andrey Tarkovsky’s Search for Spirituality in a Foreign Land, [в:] Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan 2020, с. 101–117; Гурзуф как locus amoenus в жизнетворчестве А. С. Пушкина, [в:] Tożsamość (w) przestrzeni. Сущность пространства / пространство сущности, Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka 2022, c. 89–99.

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Published

2022-12-30

How to Cite

Clayton, J. D., & Звиняцковский, В. (2022). Oleg, the Sorcerer, and the Two Alexanders (The Political Subtext of Pushkin’s Ballad “The Song of the Wise Oleg”). Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Rossica, (15), 211–219. https://doi.org/10.18778/1427-9681.15.18

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