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About The advocate. (Portland, Or.) 19??-19?? | View Entire Issue (May 25, 1929)
8 11,1,1 USTK A'IT.I ) F K A l l!K K K M T IO S Muy ‘¿r.. I t»Jí* Pushkin “ M a d e ” Russian Literature Had 111«* re lli'i'il S o \l<*\uil<l«*r 1'tmlikin. Itiin h ¡ n ' > K i i i i i i i I r i i i i i k i T » , l o l - t o i . I l o » t < » i c \ - L v . •> o p o l u n ii O l l i e r » M i n i l i l i a n - NX r i d i li in I r**Ill'll f o r Mimi o f u ImiiiiiiiK''. I l i . (ir m i Inlrul m u d « ' lit in u r o u r l f i n o r i l i ' « ' v e i l e d ilo * r i « u o f li i> ii n * » e r ii | iu ln i l» r n r n i i r » , a n d l a t e r c u i l » « ' d liix iiiiliint-ls di-alli. 71Aiifh r i hrrd. the hall lodging ,n the Poet's Intestines. f ‘Y I T Il> J A O Count h Kill.Ills Alexander i ’ i i ikin fjergr- i h y ra l'^ E unique distinction of having . "m aAc" a great Kuroiran * - B language Pushkin la known ok "T h e Father ol Russian Literature." But lie la more. Hr took the half-form ed »m l neglected Russian language that Intiierto hail been uai'd only by »lavra and the lower classes and »Imped It Into a thing o( living beauty. Prior to Pushkin, French waa the language of the eduealeil Russian lluxala liaa hud many great writers »luce Hhe has hud Count Tolstoi Dostoievsky. (logoi, Ctorky, I«cnUie Iliad there been no Pushkin. Russia's famed thinkers might still be writing In French. When u Russian writes or speaks his language he Is more Indebted to Pushkin than peoples of the Anglo- Haxon language are to Shakespeare. Pushkin was a Negro He was descended on his mother's side from Abraham I’ etrovlteh Han nibal. MirnaiiM'd "T ile Negro of Peter the Great ” As to Hannibal his story out-ro mances romance Captured In a »lave raid ill A fin a . In- was taken to Constantinople and .wild. A Rus sian officer, seeing him In a seraglio there, talked with him and found him so unusually Intelligent, that lie stole him and took him to Russia Adopted by Emperor There he was taken to the emperor, Peter tile Oreat, who was so Im pressed with hint tliat he acted as tils godfather on his conversion to Christianity and sent him. as was the custom, to be educated In the best schools in France. On Ills return lie was made a mem ber o f Peter the Great's own person al guard, latter, on the accession o f the Km press Elizabeth to the throne he rose to be general-ln- chlef o f the Russian army, and was promoted to the nobility At his dealti lie left several rotate , laOO ot .shades as one finds In no other escaping tlie most dreaded punish- { find us a most indulgent one.' < Tliat an expression so refined, so high mrnt of the time, banishment to Is. the Czar himself would.) slaves and seven children. Pushkin was born t Moscow. June l hat Ills higher comprehension of love Siberia A fter such an offer there was noth 7, 1799. tils father being a member left as deep a stamp upon subse Later, he was given a government ing else lo r Pushkin to do but ac of the Russian nobility Like other quent Russian literature as G oeth e'' post In tlie Caucasus under the gov- ! cept. o f tits class, tils training was en- rellned women left on tlic world's em or Prince VorontzofT, but he ¡ But. as will be seen, this offer tiiely in French; the Rus lan lan literature. After Pushkin had w rit wrote a satire on the latter that j was to bo Pushkin’s undoing. Nor guage lie picked up from tils m a Finally he was was it to b e tlie Czar's fault, for nia or white ''mommy.” and the ten It was Impossible lor Ru- -lan caused Ins arrest. I Kicks to speak of love ^ a lowin' sent buck a prisoner to his family, slaves on Ills father's plantation who was held responsible for him. j he loved Pushkin as a brother, and HI “mammy" had came Into ex sense than he did Puslikin was also the |»iet of L ib Hut his Independent ways brought strent a great deal o f time in his tensive < in!.id auli Russian high society, she also knew Russian hts- erty When Nature, or God. or Life, him Into continual quarrels with j company. A t tliat first meeting, af t tory. an told him stories that or whatever you will has sonic great them and fleeing from them h<* went : er Pushkin had left, he had said to tin lllcd him From the slaves he mission to perform , it picks not a oft to live among the slaves and the Court: "W e have just been talking with learned folk-songs and folk tales Hut black, white, rod, or yellow man. but peasants on a distant estate. Here the wittiest man In 11 Russia." th.i sweetest of all tales, the tales a m a n . Pushkin had com e upon a lie devoted himself to his work I f Pushkin had been an important Ilic next hnportant event m scone o f autocracy and slavery nome that did most to fire his voutliful tuillloiis of his fellow-Rus- Pushkin's life occured In 18'-!t>. At figure before, he was all the more Imagination were those told of Ills 1 thirty so now. Editors fought for his manu 1 .sum . all white, were held in the this time a large number of his as ancestor, Hannibal And sociates. who had pledged themselves scripts; cveryvine sought his auto At twelve he entered tl” * Imperial 1 grip o f a hard, cruel slavery. Academy, where his outspoken criti | unlike the Negro, they were o f the I to the overthrow o f autocracy and graphs. he was in the eyes o f all. However, he could not have come cism of men and things. Ills bold soil from time immemorial. Pushkin's the liberation of the slaves, were poems had fulfilled the great desire arrested and sent to Siberia. Push- Into a more unfavorable environment epigrams, und In ik m I u ablll than that of the Russian Court, or j kin was away at tlie time, and thus 1 for self-expression dormant In the once created a stir. At fifteen Ills When the Czar. Nicholas for that matter, any Court. A t onco llrst poem brought Inm Immediate Russian people, now they went fu r I escapad. had not tlie jealousy o f the members o f tin' lame, exciting the admiration nt ther; they stirred that spirit of lib 1 1, learned that Pushkin Dor.luivin. then the leading poet of erty slumbering In -the oppressed l been among the conspirators, he sent Czar's retinue fastened itself on this young man. whase brilliancy and wit for him. masses. Russia ThU |>orm was recited every “ We are very glad to learn. Count." eclipsed theirs as an arc light does where. so profound an Impression did Champion of Freedom he said, "that vou were not among a caudle. Above all lie committed It ni ike OI 1 all elasses ol Russians, "H e made poetry." says Another high and low. And It was all the rritlc. “ the highest activity of the those arrested for conspiring against the unpardonable sin o f winning what nearly everyone was striving , us." more daring as It hod been written human spirit. He. therefore pro "Y ou r Majesty." replied Puslikin. for: the special favor o f the Czar. In Russian and away frutu the con claimed the right o f human person T o aggravate matters Pushkin ventional French forma. "W ith one ality to be free. From the very first ' with his usual frankness “had I cut of his sword," says a critic, words of his poetic creations, he un been present I would have been ar hated artificiality, hypocrisy, and in trigue. which are tlie life o f Courts. rested for they are my comrades and ''Pushkin had freed Russian litera equivocally d e c l a r e d himself a friends." “ W hen I meet fools and hypocrites." ture from Uie lies which were keep champion of freedom." he once said, "it Is all I can do to ing It enslaved.” Accepts Court Position H U great sympathy was with the keep from biting them." His life Was Hoy Prodigy oppressed. I t was their sutlerings. "And tliat would have caused us among the slaves and peasants liad At eighteen Pushkin had become their simplicity, their patience, that great sorrow." replied tlie Czar. but served to heighten his hatred of the greatest poet In Russia and the hod Inspire-1 him. At twenty he ''Count, we are highly grateful to cant. creator o f a new school. He had wrote hts "Ode to Liberty.” which you for all you have done for Rus Could Not Hate the g ift o f taking the simplest tilings was suppressed and caused his ban- sia. W e wish you to be always near But. as one o f his friends said to of life, the commonest feelings ol tslimant to the Caucasus. Even hi us W e name you im perial his him: "You have no hatred even the ordinary p rson and relating the days ot slavery hi America there torian." Pushkin thanked the Czar but de when you bite your friends." The was n certain measure o f free s|ieech. them In a manner that thrilled. auto clined saying such a past would hin fact Is that Pushkin was incapable And he was the love poet, par ex In Ru*sl-.. however, It was der still further the freedom o f his o f doing physical hurt to any one cellence. HU verses were the de cracy, pure and simple. In exile. Pushkin continued his pen. A t that time every book printed But there was his pen. and Ills light o f millions o f Illiterate peasant genius for repartee. With tlie keen women and slaves. “ Pushkin.” says satires against the rulers o l his In Russia was first censored. "In that ease,” countered tlie rapier o f his wit he attneked them anotlier writer, "represented love un time. T h e secret police finally d e helplessly All fust Czar. "we. ourself, will undertake to and they writhed der so many aspects. In such beauti scended on him. and he had ful forms and with such a variety enough time to burn 1il* pap> * , thus be cennor o f your works, and youH I Continued on Page 9l