This wonderful piece is much appreciated. Russia has always fascinated me, especially their extraordinary artistic traditions, discipline and productivity.
While Russia is a Eurasian country, westerners have almost no functional knowledge of the people in Asia. Viewing Russia as though it were a western country, with western customs, thought traditions and aspirations is our perpetual mistake. Our failure, and arrogant refusal, to learn about other societies, cultures and histories, is coming home to roost. Today, the rest of the world is rising fast, and America is falling further and further behind. For that reason, I hope you don’t mind a few extra words on Pushkin.
Pushkin was more than a poet. It is said that Pushkin invented the modern Russian literary language. While Pushkin’s poems, Noel and Ode to Freedom, and his criticisms of the government got him exiled, he became the first Russian to earn his living as a poet and Russia’s national poet laureate.
The following excerpt from a recent book review of The First Russian offers a good introduction to the stark contrast between Russian and western society in the 1800s.
“That many readers of Pushkin remain unaware of his African roots is not an accident, and in fact was part of a concerted effort to ensure that Russia’s great national poet, whose talents were to redeem a country long viewed in the West as backward and incapable of literary genius, was as Russian as possible.
In 1899, in an article to mark the centennial of Pushkin’s birth, the journal Moscow News proclaimed: “With his works, he showed that the Russian people are not one of those peoples of the East which strives only to adopt the latest fruits of European civilization.”
That year, all of Russia was lit up with celebrations of the poet. Streets were renamed in his honor. Schoolchildren were given candy bars with his face on the wrapper. There was even a macabre board game based on the poet’s death for sale: Pushkin’s Duel.
The ethnographer Dmitry Anuchin wrote a special report, “Pushkin: An Anthropological Sketch.” Conscious of Western racial hierarchies, Anuchin actively sought to distance Pushkin’s Africanness from his Blackness.”
PS. In case I have not mentioned this before, I am enjoying your work.
