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Pushkin's "The Bronze Knight" Synopsis and Description
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)Wikipedia.
The Bronze Knight" was written by Pushkin in 1833 and is known as one of the masterpieces of Pushkin's later years, along with "The Queen of Spades" written around the same time.
I read "The Bronze Knight" translated by Kohei Tani in "Sekai Bungaku Taikei 26 Pushkin Lermontov," published by Chikuma Shobo.
Let's take a quick look at the synopsis.
Evgenii dreams of a happy married life with his lover, but his dream is shattered by the flood of 1824 in Petersburg. His lover dies in the flood, and he himself gradually loses his reason in grief. He believes that the flood, which claimed many lives, was not caused solely by the whims of nature, but was the fault of Peter I, who built the town in the lowlands at the mouth of the Neva River. He hurls a curse at the bronze statue of Peter the Bronze Knight, claiming that Peter's projects were always the cause of the people's misfortune. The Bronze Knight suddenly moves and angrily chases after Evgenii. Thus, the protest against Pyotr ends with the unfortunate death of Evgenii.
Chikuma Shobo, Sekai Bungaku Taikei 26 Pushkin Lermontov, p416-417
previousA brief history of the mysterious country of Russia is explained using a timeline!As mentioned in the article "Petersburg", Petersburg was a city created by order of Peter the Great from 1703.
As mentioned earlier in this article, the mouth of the Neva River was a damp, extremely cold marshy area, the worst land in the world, which was subject to annual flooding. Everyone admonished the emperor for the madness of building a city here, but he would not listen to them at all.
Czar Peter the Great devoted all his energies to the construction of the city of St. Petersburg, which took nine years to complete. However, the environment in this worst land was harsh, and it is said that a large number of serfs were mobilized to build the city, resulting in the deaths of more than 100,000 people.
This is the backdrop for the story of "The Bronze Knight".
And here is the very title of the statue, "The Bronze Knight.
We have also previously discussed Peter the Great, the model for the "Knight of Bronze" statue, on this blog, so please take a look if you are interested.
The "Knight of Bronze" was created by Empress Ekaterina II (reigned 1762-1796), who ruled Russia about 50 years after the reign of Peter the Great, and was unveiled in 1782.
Catherine II, who was the most legitimate successor to Peter the Great, followed in Peter's footsteps and pushed for the westernization of Russia. As a symbol of his efforts, a statue of Peter the Great, or "The Bronze Knight," was created.
The fantastic story of the "Bronze Knight," an incarnation of Emperor Peter, and the hero Evgenii are the subject of this work.
Commentary by Henri Troyer, The Biography of Pushkin
Again, Henri Troyer's "The Biography of Pushkin" gives a very clear explanation of this work, which I would like to quote here.
The Bronze Knight is a mature poem. It is the most perfect and complete of Pushkin's works, but also the most profound and enigmatic.
In this work, the lines of history and the lines of fiction, the lines of realism and the lines of fantasy, meet each other and merge into one at the same intersection. Of the three protagonists of the poem, only one is a living human minor character, Evgenii.
The second character is a bronze statue of Peter the Great.
The third character is the Neva River, which floods over both banks and submerges towns. Flesh, bronze, and running water. The ostensible reason for writing is the November 7, 1824 flood that hit Petersburg. The real reason is personal rebellion in the face of the Czar's authority, symbolized by the Bronze Knight.
Henri Troyer, Pushkin Biography, translated by Hinako Shinozuka, Suiseisha, p561
Some line breaks have been made.
In this poem, through a rare perfection of form, the physical and bronze protagonists occupy equal status.
Evgenii, a poor little official, encounters a bronze statue. The history of a nation encounters the history of an individual. The most humble of all encounters the greatest of all.
The grief of this supremely lowly one is well known to us. The disaster of the flood is embodied in his feeble black figure. He lost everything by the decision of one stranger.
Therefore, when he sees this image of another person, he asks the image to explain itself. Misfortune gives Evgenii the right. Misfortune, for a short time, makes him worthy of Peter the Great. Evgenii speaks frankly to Peter the Great.
Henri Troyer, Pushkin Biography, translated by Hinako Shinozuka, Suiseisha, p. 564
Some line breaks have been made.
Evgenii is one person. And Peter the Great was a man. Why should the happiness or misery of all be controlled by the will of a single person? Why should Evgenii be harmed because of the mistakes made by this despot?
Someone has treated his life, his love, in a way that he did not know and did not like. Someone forced him to have this grief, this madness. Someone has robbed him of himself. From arrogance. He "opened a window to Europe," he built a city facing the sea, for the pleasure of despising the storm, the rules of the art of building, the intentions of God.
And yet, Evgenii must obey. Even his defiance is immediately punished by the wrath of the monarch. The sound of the galloping hooves of the horse astride the monarch chases him across the city.
It means that there is no justice on earth. It means that historical inevitability, supersedes all else. It means that the fame of one nation is predicated on crushing a million men like Evgenii and a million women like Parasha.
Peter the Great will remain great in spite of Evgenii's insulting words and in spite of Parasha's death. Besides, Pyotr the Great will ignore both Evgenii and Parasha and their little love affair. It is not Evgenii he chases astride his bronze horse from city to city. It is all of Evgenii's race, all of the angry ants, all of the frustrated and excited humans, all of the rebels of the present and future.
He will hunt them down until they are exhausted, until they finally go insane. He would overcome them here in the Senate Square. Just as he overcame the Decabulists who had formed a camp around his statue, just as he overcame the deluge because the waves crashed against his sturdy statue and broke it. Neither the defiance of the people nor the defiance of Mother Nature can strike him a blow.
And just as the Evgenii are the incarnation of the millions of human beings who were cruelly deprived of their potential, so the image of Peter the Great is the incarnation of all tsars past and to come, all kings, all despots, all rulers of the world.
Henri Troyer, Pushkin Biography, translated by Hinako Shinozuka, Suiseisha, P564-565
Some line breaks have been made.
The people need a leader. But as soon as this leader is appointed, he ceases to be a member of the people, ceases to be a citizen sensitive to the personal fate of his fellow citizens. He no longer sees only the crowd, no longer counts only by local units. His gaze leaves the ground and moves away to immeasurable heights. The faces below are no longer but nameless, obedient, rose-colored human waves to him.
He prunes there to achieve what he thinks is overall happiness, but often for his own prestige.
He neglects the many personally meaningful things: hopes, loves, talents, treats, acts of devotion, proper names, names, letters, wilting flowers, and smiles. He overthrows, stirs up, drives away, re-gathers, caresses, fills with fervor, coldly dismisses, and repeats all over again.
He is a great man. He is no longer human. Therefore, Evgenii, too, is right in making an enemy of him. As long as monarchs like Peter the Great remain astride the backs of their bronze horses, there will be no fairness at all. However, the world has always needed and will always need monarchs like Peter the Great in order to survive. And until the end of time, these poor pale-faced, hair-raising lunatics will be shaking their fists at the bronze idols.
Henri Troyer, Pushkin Biography, translated by Hinako Shinozuka, Suiseisha, P565-566
Reading this commentary I was suddenly reminded of Napoleon.
previously introduced.The article "After all, 'Crime and Punishment' is interesting..! Thinking about its appeal from the angle of Napoleon" articleBut as I went on to consider, Napoleon was also an overwhelming ruler, so powerful that Dostoevsky imagined that "the genius Napoleon could do anything he wanted.
I had always thought that Dostoevsky was inspired by French literature such as Balzac, but Pushkin's "The Knight of Bronze" similarly depicted the problem of a ruler with overwhelming power and a weak individual.
It is precisely because this issue had already been proposed by Pushkin as well as in French literature that it matured more deeply in Dostoevsky.
The Bronze Knight" and "The Petersburg Stories."
The Bronze Knight" cemented the image of the "fantastic city of Petersburg" to the Russians.
Kaori Kawabata's "History of Russian Literature" explains as follows.
The theme of the "metropolis" was not merely an important theme in the literary world, but also in the world of thought. (omitted).
Belinskij writes, "It was usual to think of Petersburg as if it were a city built almost entirely in the air, not on a swamp.
In fact, the Russian people continued to distrust Petersburg, which lacked any historical relics or national legends, had no connection to Mother Russia, and was artificially created through force and at the expense of the people, believing that it would one day disappear and return to its former swampy state.
Westernist Berlinskii would argue in this essay that such ideas are old and meaningless, but "the vanishing Petersburg."Петербург ИсчезающThe popular myth of ий had already been taken up by Pushkin and had become an important subject in Russian literature.
Starting with the epic poem "The Bronze Knight" and the story "The Queen of Spades," the very Russian literary tradition (the so-called Petersburg Myth), which portrays Petersburg as a city with a fantastically tenuous basis in reality, would be continued by Gogol and then Dostoevsky.
Iwanami Shoten, Kaori Kawabata, A History of Russian Literature, p. 192
Some line breaks have been made.
Pushkin's The Bronze Knight, TheQueen of Spadeshas solidified the image of the fantastic city of "Petersburg.
This will allow Gogol's "Nevsky Street' and 'overcoat' "nose' and Dostoevsky's 'poor people' will be born later.
The influence of The Bronze Knight on later Russian writers was extraordinary.
In addition to these literary influences, the work is also very interesting to read as one. It is indeed called Pushkin's masterpiece.
The story moves along with Pushkin's concise and well-honed expression. Pushkin's worldview, in which reality and fantasy are exquisitely mixed, is on full display. This is an interesting film.
The above is a synopsis of Pushkin's "The Bronze Knight" - the original Gogol-Dostoevsky "Petersburg thing".
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