The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 4 March 1998
by Alexander Pushkin
Pushkin, usually thought of as a poet, demonstrates why he is considered the father of modern Russian literature. This is a lyrical tale of a young dreamy soldier posted to a remote town at the time of a Cossack revolt. He falls in love with the daughter of the post's commander after being wounded in a senseless duel. His relation, though, with the leader of the revolt, Pugachev (who was an actual historical figure), is the core of the story and indicates the author's ambivalent feelings toward these brave fighters. This is the title story in a collection of nine published by the Modern Libary in 1936. The other stories also have the lyrical tone found in much-later masterworks of Russian letters. They often tell the story of dueling, which is ironic as Pushkin is clearly criticizing the tradition as petty, though he himself would perish in a duel. The last story here, The Moor of Peter the Great is a mature tale of a black man in the court of this powerful czar. It is, at least partially, a biographical tale of one of Pushkin's ancestors. The story is compelling but tragic in the fact that Pushkin never lived to complete it.
See also: [Chekhov's In the Ravine]