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“The Bronze Horseman” (1833)
Pushkin’s
comment on Peter the Great’s project of modernization, a century after his
reign (and eight years after the Decembrist Revolt, the failed attempt by
liberal officers in the army to force the Tsar to accept a constitutional
monarchy.)
Peter’s
Situation: -
Threatened by Islamic peoples in the Russian
Southeast and Catholic peoples in the Russian Northwest, Peter had to act to
modernize the military or he faced the reduction of Russia to a bit player in
European power politics and even the prospect of the eventual dissolution of
the Russian nation. -
In his youth Peter had been schooled in the
necessity of exercising terror in royal power politics. -
In his early manhood, Peter traveled extensively
in the European West where he observed the military might of governments
which had achieved sovereignty within their borders: England’s parliamentary
system and France’s absolutist system had begin their duel for the domination
of world trade. Peter’s
Project: -
Modernization of Russian army and navy -
Raising taxes more efficiently (cutting out the
middle men) by rationalizing the state bureaucracy: creation of a
‘meritocracy’(Table of Ranks) in place
of an aristocracy which rewarded individual initiative over simple blind
loyalty. -
Creation of St. Petersburg as the new power center
of his empire -
Subduing the church and making it into the
ideological arm of the state -
Keeping order through the exercise of terror -
Ruthlessly squeezing the peasantry for the wealth
necessary to underpinning the whole project
Peter
made Russia into a player in European power politics by consolidating the
tsar’s power. Peter
opened Russia to the West, to the science of government and high tech methods
of waging war (artillery). However, by opeing Russia to the West Peter also
exposed people to the ideas which drove political movements with sought to
free the nation’s citizens from exploitation by class. Judgments
of Peter: Westernizers
liked: Rational
organization Opening
Russian thought to Enlightenment science Meritocracy Westernizers
did not like: consolidation
of tyrannical rule unconstrained by law Slavophiles
liked a
strong tsar who improves national security and expands the empire by building
a world class military Slavophiles
did not like: the
weakening of church influence the
opening of the Russian mind to alien ideas (which rushed into the country
like a flood). the
tightening grip of the autocracy The St.
Petersburg Flood of 1824: November
19, 1824 The Neva flooded 13.5 feet over the flood level. 462 house were
destroyed and 569 people were killed. The floods resulted from poor planning
in the initial design of the city. The city had flooded over 270 times in the
hundred years of its history. This was the biggest catastrophe. The
poet Karamzin had written a sentimental elegy commemorating the flood.
Pushkin begins The Bronze Horseman with his parody of that poem.
The Decembrist Uprising (1825)
On
December 14, 1825, the officer corps of the military had gathered at the
Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to pledge their loyaly to the new tsar,
Nicholas I. A number of liberal officers, influenced by their experiences in
the West during the Napoleonic Wars, sought to pressure the tsar into forming
a constitutional government based on liberal conceptions of the rights of the
individual and separation of power between different institutions of
government. Tsar Nicholas had loyal troops fire on the rebels, and the
rebellious officers were arrested and either executed or exiled to Siberia. This
abortive rebellion shook Nicholas, and in response he banned all open dissent
or criticism of the regime. To enforce his rule, Nicholas formed the Third
Section, a secret police which would seek to infiltrate any organized
resistance to autocratic rule. The Statue of
Peter the Great:
The
famous statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg which is the subject of
Pushkin’s poem was commissioned by Catherine the Great as a tribute to her
predecessor and sculpted by the French artist Falconet in 1782. Falconet
depicts Peter on horseback rearing atop a pedestal of red granite shaped like
a cliff. The horse crushes a snake beneath one hoof. The pedestal is the
famous Thunder Stone, claimed by St. Petersburg legend to be the largest
stone ever moved. City legend also has it that the city will never be
conquered while the horseman stands. During the 900 day siege of Leningrad by
the Nazis during the Second World War, the statue stood in place- protected
by sandbags- and survived unhurt. Close
Reading of Poem
Introduction: The Idea! (140) Paean to St.
Petersburg (140-142) Part
One Evgeny the
Hero (142-43), The Flood of
the Neva (143-44) Tsar Alexander
Contemplates the Storm (144) Evgeny on the
Rooftop (145) Part
Two The Neva
Recedes (146) Parasha is
Dead (146-47) Scoundrel Time
(147) Evgeny Goes
Mad. (148) Evgeny
Homeless (148) Accusing the
Bronze Horseman (149-50) The Statue
Comes to Life (150) Evgeny Drowns
in the Neva (151)
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