The Queen of Spades and Selected Works

Alexander Pushkin

• Editore: Pushkin Press
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781908968104
• Argomento: Literature
• Categoria: Classics

The Queen of Spades and Selected Works is a brand new English translation of two of Alexander Pushkin's greatest short stories, 'The Queen of Spades' and 'The Stationmaster', together with the poem 'The Bronze Horseman', extracts from Yevgeny Onegin and Boris Godunov, and a selection of his poetic work. 'The Queen of Spades' ('Pikovaya dama'), originally published in Russian in 1834, is one of the most famous tales in Russian literature, and inspired the eponymous opera by Tchaikovsky; in 'The Stationmaster' ('Stantsionnyy smotritel'), originally published in Russian in The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin (Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina) in 1830, he reworks the parable of the Prodigal Son; the hugely entertaining 'Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters' is a bawdier early poem; and the deeply moving narrative poem 'The Bronze Horseman', inspired by a St Petersburg statue of Peter the Great, is one of his most influential works. The volume also includes a selection of his best lyric poetry. Translated by Anthony Briggs, The Queen of Spades and Selected Works is the perfect introduction to Alexander Pushkin's finest work.

Pushkin ranks as one of Russia's greatest writers. Born in 1799, he published his first poem when he was a teenager, and attained fame in 1820 with his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila. In the late 1820s he found himself the target of government censors, unable to travel or publish at will; during this time, he wrote his most famous play, Boris Godunov, and Yevgeny Onegin (published 1825-1832). 'The Queen of Spades', his most famous prose work, was published in 1834; his best-known poem, 'The Bronze Horseman', appeared after his death (from a wound sustained in a duel) in 1837.

Anthony Briggs is one of the world's leading authorities on the work of Pushkin, author of Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study and editor of Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia's Best-Loved Writer. He is also an acclaimed translator from the Russian, whose translations include War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy.

THE BRONZE HORSEMAN

Foreword

The occurrence described in this story is based on real events.
Details of the flood are taken from contemporary journals.
Anyone interested may consult the report by V.N. Berkh.

Introduction

Gazing across a watery waste,

He of the mighty visions faced

The farthest deeps. Vast in its scope,

The river carried, as it raced,

One miserable little boat.

The swampy banks were mossy green

With dark huts few and far between,

The homes of lowly Finnish folk.

The forests, through their misty screen,

Where hidden sunbeams never broke,

Murmured with noises.

And he pondered:

“We’ll scare the Swedes away. This place

Shall see a city strongly founded,

Flung in our brazen neighbour’s face.

A window into Europe we

Shall cut by Nature’s own decree,

And build a solid sea-shore station.

Borne here across the unknown main,

All vessels we shall entertain.

And freely spread our celebration.”

A century saw the city’s birth,

A lovely wonder of the north,

From darkest woods and swampy earth

Magnificently rising forth.

Where Finnish fishermen before,

Stepsons of Nature, all alone,

Stood sadly on the shallow shore

And cast into the depths unknown

Their rotting nets—in this place now

Along the living banks see how

Huge, shapely buildings throng and rise,

Tower and palace: vessels race

In fleets from earth’s remotest place

To quaysides rich with all supplies.

The Neva now was clad in stone.

New bridges crossed the water, while,

Dark, decorating every isle,

Green were the gardens which had grown.

The capital, of younger life,

Outshone the Moscow that had been,

As an ascendant ruler’s wife

Outshines the purpled, widowed queen.

O Peter’s work, I love you so!

I love your stateliness and strength,

The Neva’s soft, majestic flow,

The granite bordering her length,

Your iron railings’ hard design,

And through the thoughtfulness of night

Your limpid twilight’s moonless shine.

When in my room I stay to write

Or sit, without a lamp, to read,

The sleeping streets shine clear indeed,

Vast masses emptied of their people;

Bright, too, the Admiralty steeple.

The darkness is denied possession

Of this, the golden firmament.

Dawn follows dawn in swift succession;

Night’s borrowed half-hour is soon spent.

I love your cruel winter, too,

The still air and the frosty shiver,

Girls’ cheeks with more than rosy hue,

The sledging down the Neva river,

The brilliance, noise and talk there is

At balls; the single fellow’s turn

To feast, when glasses foam and fizz,

And in the punch the blue flames burn.

I love, in lively, warlike duty,

Cadets upon the Martian field.

Foot soldiers, cavalry, revealed

In level and unchanging beauty,

The rippling, orderly array

Of banners torn, victorious ones.

Their helmets, wrought in shining bronze,

Shot through by bullets in the fray.

I love you, capital of Mars,

When fortress cannons smoke and roar

To welcome to the house of tsars

A son, the northern queen’s gift, or

To greet new victories in war

And raise triumphant Russian voices,

Or when the Neva starts the motion

Of cracked blue ice towards the ocean

And, with a sense of spring, rejoices.

O Peter’s town, lik...