Writing the Story of Pushkin's Death
| Autor: | Leslie O'Bell |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1999 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Slavic Review. 58:393-406 |
| ISSN: | 2325-7784 0037-6779 |
| Popis: | often discover that the documentary evidence for the writer's life is less than objective and in fact displays its own biases and is governed by its own conventions of representation. The finished biographies of an author, which are already influenced by the "take" of the documentary evidence, are in their turn consciously constructed to reveal the biographical concept that the writer of the life attempts to discern behind its events, the siuzhet behind the unfolding story. Aleksandr Pushkin's life, like that of many other figures, has been subjected to a kind of conceptual fictionalization, and this is the source of much of the cultural mythmaking that surrounds his name. I do not intend to use this paper to critique the many biographies of Pushkin, however, but rather to delve back into some of the biographical sources themselves. And I will limit myself to one important nexus of events, Pushkin's duel and death.' What I have to say is informed by the notion that writing the story of Pushkin's death was something that began from the framing of the events themselves in the letters and diaries of the participants and the observers. It pays to direct attention back to the biographical sources, not because they are more objective, but because if we appreciate them, we become privy to the original versions of the story. Only recently have we been able to fit into the picture the letters of Georges d'Anthes to Baron Jacob van Heeckeren from which I quote extensively toward the end of this paper. There were several competing versions of the story of Pushkin's duel and death being framed as events developed, but I believe that the most authentic version may be compared to an epistolary novel in the manner of Choderlos de Laclos's Liaisons dangereuses (1782). We who come later inevitably read the story of Pushkin's death, whereas in fact we should attend first to how it was written.2 This will eventually make it possible to write better biography. In order to appreciate the sources that comprise the several versions of this story, we need to make use of all of our skills as readers. This is so |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|