I didn’t realize that the meaning of “Александрийский столп,” which I translated as “Alexander’s column,” was in dispute. Michael Wachtel summarizes the debate in his indispensable “Commentary to Pushkin’s Lyric Poetry, 1826-1836”:
“This line has tormented commentators. In Russian (and in Pushkin’s Russian) the word александри́йский means “of Alexandria.” It is conceivable that this is simply a Gallicism formed from the name Alexander (Meilakh 2005, 350–52), but the normal way to say “Alexander Column” is “Александровская колонна.” This twenty-five-meter-high column, a monument to Tsar Alexander, was begun in 1829 and completed in 1834. (Pushkin intentionally left the capital to avoid having to witness the official unveiling ceremonies; see Jakobson, 346.) It was the highest structure in Petersburg, making it a logical subject of comparison. Given that Pushkin was known to detest Tsar Alexander (who had, after all, exiled him), it would be logical that Pushkin was comparing himself, another Alexander (see the “непокорной главой” of line 3) to the tsar. If the word really connotes Alexandria, it would suggest the Diocletian Column in Alexandria (built in AD 297), measuring twenty-six meters. It has further been argued that Pushkin, by metonymy, means the lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, in which case it would develop logically from the “pyramids” (in Horace and Derzhavin), another of the ancient wonders. Be that as it may, there is no question that Zhukovskii (who had attended the official unveiling of the Alexander Column and written an enthusiastic endorsement thereof) assumed that the line would be read as a reference to the tsar. When he prepared the first publication of the poem after Pushkin’s death, he changed it to “Наполеонова столпа” a reference to the Colonne Vendôme in Paris (erected by Napoleon in his own honor), which the Alexander Column was meant to “answer” (and dwarf). The word “столп” (as against “колонна”) has an archaic coloration (Alekseev 1967, 69–71).”
I’m inclined to think Pushkin disguised his insolent mention of the Alexander Column so that he could always say he meant the “Alexandrian column.”
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