Undiscovered Pushkin fragment kicks off new Russian literature series!

I originally intended to start my series on Russian literature with a piece on Ivan the Terrible: his writings, his image, his presence in literature, theatre, opera and film. But that went out the window when I received a slim rectangular package in the post this morning, with a note from my friend Dr. Nikolai Shaporin to the effect that “this is about to be published in Moscow, but I thought you may like a copy of the original”. Inside was a facsimile copy of something I thought I would never have the good fortune to see.

In his Secret Diary, Pushkin writes of a great tragedy he was composing, on the theme – as synchronicity would have it – of the life and death of Tsar Ivan. It was stolen, under circumstances I would rather not narrate on a respectable blog, by a “lively girl” by the name of Nadezhda. Now, Pushkin was hardly what you’d call careful of his reputation, but not even he could reasonably make a public fuss about the loss of his work. As it happened, he shrugged it off and decided that the Fates were against his Ivan project. He decided to write Boris Godunov instead, and while there was no way of foreseeing the immense success this work would later have, it was well enough received and put a few more rubles in his pocket. Pushkin, who was as superstitious as a peasant grandmother, felt vindicated in his decision… and Tsar Ivan was dropped for good.

Of course, nobody could deny that Boris Godunov is a Good Thing, especially me (Boris fangirl that I am). But ever since I learned of the existence of a Pushkin Ivan the Terrible, even in draft form, I’ve been dizzy with longing. And now it’s here, sitting by my computer, in Pushkin’s own execrable handwriting, with his characteristic doodles on the pages. A girl’s profile, a horse, an Ossetian cavalryman, a… oh my, never mind that, and an eagle all adorn the first page.

Now to take a deep breath and a closer look.

It’s immediately obvious that this is a typical Pushkin first draft. He seems to have written down everything that occurs to him, then rewritten and rewritten it until it sparkles. Thus, Ivan’s first soliloquy begins like this:

Alone at the summit of my power/ Wrapped in black like a bat eagle monk I preside/ Over this unholy order of profane clergy/ Orgies, routs, persecutions, black rites/ Such is the worship of my blasphemous flock/ Who flay and scourge and purge Russia/ The oprichnina is my will made flesh/ No mercy for those I deem unworthy…

…and after a number of edits, is distilled into this:

Black-wrapt and hawkish, I survey/ The profane warrior monks who do my will/ Russia shall be made pure/ By their unholy righteous fire

Alas, it looks like Pushkin barely reached the end of Act I before the bold Nadezhda did her work; but this one Act is full of enough juicy detail to fuel a hundred Hollywood films because, Pushkin being Pushkin, he goes right for the scandal.

Ivan’s soliloquy – there is no Prologue – is followed by an extended scene depicting one of the Tsar’s rumoured “profane masses”; which is only to be expected.* This is neither gratuitous, though, like his “throwaway” lyrics; nor it is excessively crude. Like the torture of the insurgents in The Captain’s Daughter or Boris Godunov’s psychological terrors, it is horrifying – shocking, disturbing – without crossing the line into melodrama. I can only imagine the wonders Mussorgsky would have done with the song of the Oprichniki, with its bloodlust and its threats; I am sure it would have made even Prokofiev’s version sound pale.

This is followed by an interlude involving a simple rosy cheeked girl from a nice family – a typical Pushkin girl, really – who does not know that she’s immediately to be betrothed to the bloodthirsty Tsar. If this story sounds familiar, it’s because Lev Mey and subsequently Rimsky-Korsakov made it famous as The Tsar’s Bride; but Ivan and his wives are such a staple of Russian historical mythology that it’s hardly surprising it crops up here too. But whereas Mey’s Marfa is the victim of the Tsar’s arbitrary choice, poor Dunyasha’s parents sold her up the river without her knowledge, and we see her preparing her bridal panoply with absolutely no clue that she’s going to be living in the Kremlin and not with that nice merchant boy she likes so much.

Oh, nanny, how my girlish heart delights/ In the promise of matrimony and the sweet/ Bliss of love soon to be fulfilled/ He will be gentle, I am sure of it, and kind/ And the mystery will be known to me/ Oh nanny, I am blushing!

And that’s after a number of edits. Dunyasha makes Tatiana from Evgenii Onegin seem like a real tough broad. Nonetheless, I am sure that Pushkin would have written her tragic story beautifully, had he had the chance.

The fragment ends there; and undoubtedly my life is richer for having this glimpse into how Pushkin might have written his Ivan the Terrible. While I would agree that not everything produced by an author, even a great author, necessarily has great intrinsic value, what remains to us of Ivan the Terrible is not only an astounding piece of writing but a direct insight into the poet’s way of working. Let us hope that some publisher thinks the same and commissions an English translation so that Pushkin’s friends abroad can have this opportunity too.

Ivan the Terrible will be published later in 2008 by the All-Russian Academic Press (Vserossiiskoe akademicheskoe izdatel’stvo), Moscow.

* Of course, contemporary censorship and many decades of editorial prudery mean that many readers, particularly those in the former Soviet Union, are entirely unfamiliar with Pushkin’s prurient side; although publication of the Secret Diary has now enlightened all but the most stubborn.