The death of the poet (Lermontow)
The death of the poet (Russian Смерть Поэта / Smert 'poeta ) is a poem by Mikhail Lermontow (1814–1841) on the death of Alexander Pushkin , who died on January 29th . / February 10, 1837 greg. had died as a result of a duel with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès .
Retribution, Your Majesty, Retribution!
I fall at your feet:
Be just and punish the murderer
The motto was added later by Lermontow and indicates the character of the poem. It is not only a literary obituary for the Russian national poet, but also a call for vengeance and an "outcry from the Russians who were deeply offended by Pushkin's death". Lermontov passionately and in sharp words criticized the circumstances that led to this duel and was transferred to a military regiment in the Caucasus as a punishment.
The duel
… Smiling, he cheekily despised the
language and customs of the foreign country;
could not spare him, who was our fame ...
Alexander Pushkin's opponent in the duel was the Frenchman Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès , an officer in the guard in the Russian service and adoptive son of the Dutch ambassador in Saint Petersburg . He courted Pushkin's wife Natalia in a striking and provocative manner that was offensive to the poet. Rumors about the nature of d'Anthès' relationship with Natalja Pushkina and anonymous letters mocking the supposedly betrayed husband put Pushkin in an untenable position. A duel was initially prevented through the mediation of his friend Wassili Schukowski ; Mainly because d'Anthès had surprisingly announced his intention to marry Katharina Goncharova, Natalia's older sister. This marriage, however, did not change his obtrusively displayed admiration for his now sister-in-law. The amusement of the Petersburg society, in whose eyes Natalja Pushkina was guilty, as well as the defiant demeanor of the French made Pushkin angry again. He wrote an insulting letter to the adoptive father Heeckeren, so that the son was forced to claim a duel.
The poet perished! As a slave of honor
he fell, slandered by rumors,
with lead in his chest and a thirst for vengeance ...
Pushkin's second was Konstantin Danzas , a former schoolmate from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum . D'Anthès commissioned the Viscount d'Archiac, a member of the French embassy. The duel conditions were negotiated by the seconds and laid down in writing. On January 27th, July / February 8, 1837 greg. the duel was fought near Saint Petersburg on the so-called Black River. The opponents took up positions at the agreed distance from each other and advanced on a starting signal. D'Anthès was the first to shoot and hit Pushkin in the body. Lying on the ground - the gun had fallen from his hand and had to be handed another one - the seriously wounded Pushkin fired a shot, but only slightly injured his opponent. He himself succumbed to his injury two days later at the age of thirty-seven.
The poem
The sudden and violent death of the Russian national poet - also caused by a foreigner - caused sadness and anger in Russia. Just a few days after Pushkin's death, Mikhail Lermontov wrote his famous and, for himself, momentous poem. Initially, it was not printed, but thousands of copies were distributed by hand.
... But you, you haughty descendants of
your fathers who are famous for their notorious villainy ...,
... you who stand on the throne as a greedy crowd,
executioners of freedom, genius and fame!
You hide behind the protective law,
before you judgment and truth must be silent, everything must be silent ...
Lermontov passionately revolted against the Petersburg society, whose hostility and intrigues Pushkin was exposed to, and accused them of having hunted the poet in an " infamous manner". He lamented the "insidious whispers of scornful ignoramuses " and threatened the "darlings of vice" with divine judgment. He sharply criticized court society and made it responsible for the death of the famous but politically uncomfortable poet.
Mikhail Lermontov was arrested and then transferred to a military regiment in the Caucasus . There he did not find death in a battle against rebel tribes, but died four years later in Pyatigorsk - killed in a duel on July 15, 1841 at the age of twenty-six.
background
... The poet's soul had
no longer endured the shame of petty hurts,
he had risen against the opinion of society,
but as always ... and he was killed!
After his pardon by Tsar Nicholas I and his return from exile, Alexander Pushkin was under constant surveillance by the secret police, whose chief Alexander Benckendorff imposed numerous restrictions on him. His works had to be submitted to the tsar for censorship in person, he had to get travel permits, and letters were opened. The mistrust of court and government circles was reinforced by the friendship that Pushkin had forged with many participants in the Decembrist uprising ; on top of that there were crushing debts and finally the rumors and malice that hit him and his wife.
The background to the duel was never completely cleared up, and so many speculations and speculations soon arose. The theses range from wanted suicide to deliberate attempted murder; from the conspiracy of d'Anthès and his adoptive father to the targeted intrigue of court circles with d'Anthès as a tool to get rid of the politically uncomfortable Pushkin. However, there is no evidence or even proof for any of these theses.
Trivia
- “Which Russian is not torn from his heart by his death?” The poet Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky , one of Alexander Pushkin's closest friends and earliest supporter, wrote a letter to his father Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, which was also intended for the public. In it he described the painful death of the poet, his farewell to friends and family and the great sympathy of the people who had come by the thousands to pay their final respects to him.
- The coffin with Pushkin's body was removed from Saint Petersburg at night out of concern about demonstrations of sympathy for the poet directed against the tsar. As he himself wished, Pushkin found his final resting place in the cemetery of the Svyatogorsky monastery near the city of Pskov .
- Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès was expelled from Russia after the duel; he returned to France and made under Napoleon III. political career.
- The German writer Friedrich von Bodenstedt , who had met Lermontov personally in Saint Petersburg, came into possession of a copy of the hitherto unpublished poem after his death, translated it into German in the dimensions of the original and took it in 1852 under the title Lermontoff's Klagegesang am Dredge Alexander Pushkin (On the Death of the Poet, 1837) in the collection of Michail Lermontoff's Poetischer inheritance . In addition, some of Lermontov's poems were published for the first time in their entirety and without gaps from Russian censorship.
Translation comparison
The following is a comparison of individual verses in different translations: On the left the rework by Friedrich von Bodenstedt, in the middle the translation from Selected Works Rütten & Löning. Berlin 1987, on the right the translation into German of the current Reclam edition by Kay Borowsky :
The poet wanted to avenge his honor,
which he believed injured by poisonous words,
Then the lead hit him to break his heart,
To bow his mighty head ...
... And some now rejoice that he fell,
And even praise the murderer, who his goal
so well hit, and with cold courage, firm,
without trembling,
fired the murderer's shot, which reddened our country, with the blood of the
song-rich genius ...
... he came from afar as an adventurer, he
took no heart with him, left none back - he
seeks rank with us, title, stars of the order,
because other happiness was incomprehensible to him,
he found what he was looking for in our midst,
he found a second fatherland with us -
his thanks was: that he
met what he met at every step found contemptuous.
He remained
alien to our language, our custom, the people were an object of scorn for him
He sought no favor but that of the throne ...
The poet fell - he thought
he had been robbed of his honor by villains .
He struck in the heart who mocked him,
And dying his proud head sank! ...
...
Who murdered him, cold blood Did he do it ... He shot turned;
His empty heart was brave,
and his hand did not tremble ...
From distant realms
he came as an adventurer,
And a hundred others like him to
steal fortune and offices;
He despised our country,
His law and custom, his word and knowledge,
Would have liked to wrest glory and honor from us;
How could he know when he was shot down
who lost his hand ...
The poet perished! As a slave of honor
he fell, slandered by rumors,
with lead in his chest and a thirst for revenge,
bowing his proud head! ...
... His murderer struck
the blow in cold blood ... There was no rescue:
the empty heart beats evenly,
the pistol does not tremble in his hand ...
... And what is so amazing about it? ... from a distance, like
hundreds of other refugees, he
was cast
to us on the hunt for happiness and a career according to the will of fate;
smiling, he cheekily despised the
language and customs of the foreign country;
could not spare him who was our glory;
could not reach in that bloody moment, against which
he raised his hand! ...
literature
- Friedrich Bodenstedt: Michail Lermontoff's poetic legacy . Second volume. Publishing house of Decker's Secret Upper Hofbuchdruckerei, 1852.
- Friedrich Bodenstedt: Alexander Puschkin's poetic works . Third volume. Publisher of Decker's Secret Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei, Berlin 1855.
- Otto Hauser: World history of literature . Second volume. Bibliographical Institute, Leipzig and Vienna 1910.
- Rolf-Dietrich Keil: Alexander Pushkin. A poet's life . Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-458-34482-9 .
- Mikhail Lermontov: Poems . Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-003051-X .
- Uwe Schultz (Ed.): The duel . Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-458-33439-4 .
- Friedrich Bodenstedt: Michail Lermontoff's poetic legacy . Second volume. Berlin 1852 ( books.google.de [PDF; 3.3 MB ; accessed on November 2, 2010]).
- Friedrich Bodenstedt: Alexander Puschkin's poetic works . Third volume. Berlin 1855 ( books.google.com [PDF; 6.1 MB ; accessed on November 2, 2010]).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michail Lermontow: Poems . 2000, p. 143 .
- ↑ a b Ota Filip: ... or was it murder? - Alexander Pushkin dies in a duel . In: Uwe Schultz (Ed.): The duel . 1996, p. 206 .
- ↑ Michail Lermontow: Poems . 2000, p. 67 .
- ^ Rolf-Dietrich Keil: Alexander Puschkin. A poet's life . 2001, p. 429 .
- ^ Rolf-Dietrich Keil: Alexander Puschkin. A poet's life . 2001, p. 437 .
- ↑ Note: The order of the selected verses in the article does not correspond to the actual order in the poem.
- ^ Rolf-Dietrich Keil: Alexander Puschkin. A poet's life . 2001, p. 441 .
- ↑ Note: D'Anthès was not allowed to leave his position after the first shot; he put his right hand protectively on his chest and was grazed by a graze on his arm and chest.
- ↑ Ota Filip: ... or was it murder? 1996, p. 203 .
- ↑ Otto Hauser: World history of literature . 1910, p. 419 .
- ^ Rolf-Dietrich Keil: Alexander Puschkin. A poet's life . 2001, p. 386 .
- ↑ Ota Filip: ... or was it murder? 1996, p. 208 .
- ^ Rolf-Dietrich Keil: Alexander Puschkin. A poet's life . 2001, p. 428 .
- ^ Friedrich Bodenstedt: Alexander Puschkin's poetic works . 1855, p. 236 ( books.google.com [PDF; 6.1 MB ; accessed on November 2, 2010]).
- ↑ Friedrich Bodenstedt: Michail Lermontoff's Poetischer Nachlaß . 1852, p. 314 ( books.google.de [PDF; 3.3 MB ; accessed on November 2, 2010]).