Vladislav Khodasevich as Teacher of Pushkin: Lectures on Poetry to the Proletkult

Angela Brintlinger

Proletkult, poetry, and Pushkin. Quite a combination, if you think about it. Add the poet Vladislav Khodasevich (1886–1939) into the mix, and the likelihood of pedagogical success seems slim, at best.

The publication of a number of documents from the archive of A. Ivich offers a new look into the way that Khodasevich viewed Pushkin and how he used his knowledge of Pushkin in his last pre-emigration years  —specifically, in the classroom. These “Pushkin lectures,” first published by Sophia Bogatyreva in Voprosy literatury in 1999, are being rendered into English for the first time here. In her Voprosy introduction, Bogatyreva refers to some of Khodasevich’s articles about Pushkin, Proletkult, and other cultural issues, published in his pre- and post-emigration periods. Together, the present publication and Khodasevich’s scattered articles in the Russian and émigré press represent Khodasevich’s “Pushkiniana.” As a lifelong student of Pushkin’s work, with the insights of a poet, a scholar, and a most careful reader, Khodasevich earned a place amongst the best Pushkinists of the 20th century. Contemporary scholars and students can sigh along with Mark Aldanov, who in his obituary of Khodasevich in 1939 lamented, “How sad that he never wrote the life of Pushkin!” Aldanov continued:

He said that he had suddenly found himself without the most necessary sources, that you can’t put all of Pushkin’s life into one volume, that such a book could only be written in Russia, that he would need two years to write it. All of this was true. But I think that he could have overcome the incidental and external obstacles. It is more likely that he saw such work as too crucial, requiring too much spiritual exertion. He put it off until better times—as, it seems, did Gershenzon. This loss is irreparable.

Khodasevich. Lectures on Pushkin for Proletkult (1918)[1]

Translated by Angela Brintlinger

First Lecture, Fundamental Techniques for Reading Pushkin Consciously[2]

I

1. I have already written about the necessity of education for proletarian poets.[3] There is no need to repeat my conclusions: your presence here demonstrates that you share my views.

2. More important is the question of just what the proletarian poet needs to study. The answer to this question depends on the answer to a more general question: what does it mean to study when we are speaking about the education of beginning poets?

     Poëtae nascitur.[4] It is not possible to teach someone to be a poet. One can teach poetry writing, i.e., acquaint [students] with the main techniques of poetic art. This is almost purely theoretical. In practice – analysis. No teaching, no forcing. Poetry does not occur at will. It is a miracle born of an individual’s spiritual power. A mystery, a sacrament. Rehearsing a miracle? Staging a sacrament? This is blasphemy.[5] And what’s more – it’s fraud, delusion. (Charlatanism.) (About the bourgeois studio.) I hope that Proletkult will not take that path.

3. The only correct path is to learn to read. He who knows how to read, if he has talent, will learn to write as well (only separate instructions, advice, but no “lessons for tomorrow”). Without talent, no subtleties, tricks or fashions will help. (I can lift 10 lbs. If you see me juggling weights like a real circus performer, know that they are cardboard. My “strength” will be of no use at all.)

     So, the main goal of our special section will be to create readers of poetry, not writers. In Russia people have never known how to read poetry, and they still don’t. The main error has been changing views: now content, now form. Neither one nor the other. Content and form are indivisible. One is indissolubly bonded to the other, and it is not possible to read poets without keeping this in mind.