AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN: THE TRACE OF A. MICKIEWICZ IN THE LATER WORKS OF A.S. PUSHKIN

Abstract

Within the framework of this article the later works of A. S. Pushkin are considered against the background of polemic with Adam Mickiewicz. The author of the study shows that Pushkin's artistic pathways in the 1830s depend largely on A. Mickiewicz's message “To Russian Friends". The focus of research attention is on works written after 1833 (the narratives ‘The Queen of Spades’ and ‘Egyptian Nights’, the novel ‘The Captain's Daughter’, the poem ‘The Monument’). In these and other works, Pushkin attempts to explain his political views on the key events of the Russian Empire (The Decembrist Revolt on December 14, 1825 and the Polish Insurrection of 1830-1831). In his works written against the background of polemic with A. Mickiewicz, A. Pushkin not so much refutes the views of the Polish poet, but rather reveals the tendentiousness of the external point of view when it comes to the "history of the Russian state". Pushkin's own position is ambiguous as the very movement of the author's thought becomes an independent semantic plot. The tragic impossibility of giving definitive answers uncovers both the complexity of the Russian statehood and the complexity of the author's attitude towards it.