Tragedy and Ethical Evaluation in Pushkin’s Poltava*

Ivan Eubanks

Alexander Pushkin’s Poltava concludes with a paean to the subtle traces of human lives a century after their ends. All that “goes on four feet, two feet and three feet … and is most feeble when it walks on four” passes to dust, thereafter existing in this world only as a shade of past events, per­haps exerting a presence in history or legend and then, possibly, in myth.[1] The barely discernible remains of the Swedish king’s camp at Bender, three steps descending into the belly of the earth, say little about his wor­thiness as Peter’s foe. The field at Poltava and its trees silently memorial­ize the warriors who fought and died in the battle. A monument built by the labor of hands commemorates the two “martyrs,” Colonel Iskra and the Judge General Kochubei, concealing the deleterious longing for ven­geance against Mazepa that motivated their loyalty to Russia. As for the Hetman himself, the final stanza of Poltava claims that:

Забыт Мазепа с давних пор;
Лишь в торжествующей святыне
Раз в год анафемой доныне,
Грозя, гремит о нем собор.

Mazepa had long been forgotten;
Only during solemnities on holy ground,
Annually unto this day, menacing,
The cathedral thunders anathema on him.[2]

The Mystery of Germann’s Failure in The Queen of Spades: Cracking Pushkin’s Personal Code*

Daria Solodkaia

“My ‘Queen of Spades’ is in great vogue,” wrote Pushkin in his diary in April 1834. For almost two centuries the story has been celebrated by readers, with this difference: in Pushkin’s time it stirred the blood of card players, whereas nowadays it heats the imagination of literary scholars. Regardless of the approach chosen for analysis, most critics attempt to crack the mystery of the three cards, returning again and again to the story’s finale. Why does Germann lose the game? Why does the queen appear in the ace’s place? What is the meaning of three, seven, and ace? Interpretations are legion; nevertheless, “something in the text is always missing […] It is either the elusive ace, or the absence of resolution in the debate over realistic versus supernatural motivation, or the lack of a sin­gle literary prototype that the heroes […] might be parodying.”[1] In this essay I will argue that in Pushkin’s text—constructed in accordance with his idea of a prose work as precise and brief—nothing is missing: Ger­mann’s fatal confusion is predetermined by his movement into and around the countess’s house, and his final loss is a replica of the strategy he him­self chooses in order to win. As I will suggest, the appearance of the queen does not represent Germann pulling the wrong card, as is commonly pre­sumed, but means quite the opposite. Therefore, however audacious it may seem, I will propose another possible reading, which will look at Ger­mann’s failure through the prism of Pushkin’s own attitude towards the value of money and marriage in relation to happiness at the time of his work on The Queen of Spades.