[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Carl—

I am at such a disadvantage discussing Pushkin with you. It seems as though Pushkin, at different times, adopted almost every political position. I know he studied under Kunitsyn and was familiar with the ideas developed by Locke and Montesquieu of power arising from a social contract, but in this poem he seems surprisingly cynical about these views. Was this because the Reign of Terror and Napoleon had disillusioned him? He claims to have no interest in political theory, but he seems to have understood it very well. Pushkin satirizes the aristocracy in Евгений Онегин with his presentation of the title character as a “superfluous man.” The speaker in this poem sounds like a superfluous man—bored, disillusioned, cynical.

A few questions:

L5: Does the Russian мешать mean “to keep s/one from doing s/thing” or “to interfere?” Is the speaker preventing kings from fighting with each other or is he meddling in their squabbles?

L6: I’m hearing this as tetrameter (those pesky personal pronouns!) I’m not stressing “I.”

L13: Your crib renders «Бог с ними» as “Let them be.” Would “God be with them” or “God bless them” be more literal? (Or is this a Russian idiom that I’m ignorant of? Perhaps you are reluctant to let this non-believing narrator invoke God?)

Very nice work, Carl. I need to do some more homework to find out more about Pushkin’s political views.

Glenn