Was Emperor Nicholas I really involved in Pushkin's death?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

More than 180 years have passed since the duel that took the life of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, but the search for the truth continues to this day. Most historians do not doubt Dantes' guilt, but someone sees in the drama both an "imperial trace", and even Natalie's conspiracy with her husband's murderer. How the events that led to the sad ending actually developed, and whether the king was really involved in them, can be said if you learn about the relationship between the poet and the emperor, whose first meeting took place in 1826.

When Pushkin had his first problems with power

As a descendant of a noble family, young Alexander Pushkin studied at the Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum - a privileged educational institution where future government officials were brought up. Such a starting position guaranteed Pushkin excellent prospects, and if he was aimed at a career, it is quite possible that he would become either a high-ranking politician or a government official.

Already during his studies, it was clear that Alexander did not feel any craving for public service. However, writers were not entitled to a salary, but officials - yes, and after graduating from the Pushkin Lyceum, they are enrolled in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs.

There, having personally met many statesmen, the poet did not skimp on caustic and sometimes evil epigrams addressed to them. But if the jokes against the dignitaries still remained unpunished, then the ode "Liberty", in which a protest against the autocracy was clearly sounded, became the reason for Pushkin's summons to Miloradovich, who was the governor of St. Petersburg at that time. After communication, where the poet managed to win the general's favor with his openness, Miloradovich with a notebook of poems of a young freethinker appeared before the emperor.

After talking with the governor, the initial verdict of Alexander I was "Send to Siberia!" - a little later was still softened. Thanks to the intercession of Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Chaadaev and the same Miloradovich, Pushkin was sent to southern exile under the supervision of Lieutenant General Inzov.

For which Alexander Sergeevich was summoned "to the carpet" to the emperor

From the second exile, this time to the family estate for correspondence with atheistic content, the poet returned to St. Petersburg in 1826 on the personal order of Nicholas I. from 2 years of imprisonment into the light.

The tsar, having heard about Pushkin's freethinking, summoned him for a personal audience, at which he asked directly what the poet would have been doing during the events on Senate Square. To this, Alexander Sergeevich frankly replied that he would be with his rebel friends, since he could not leave them and be on the sidelines. True, in the course of a further 2-hour conversation, Pushkin made it clear that he was not an ideological revolutionary, although he was constantly carried away by new ideas.

How Pushkin Becomes Tsarist Historiographer

After the meeting took place and the conversation took place tete-a-tete, the poet was released from punishment and allowed to live in St. Petersburg. Moreover, Nicholas declared himself Pushkin's personal censor, repeatedly provided him with material support, and in 1831 opened him access to secret historical archives, making him a tsarist historiographer.

True, the first result of archival and historical research did not live up to the Tsar's expectations: he did not need a description of the events of the peasant war of 1773-1775, which Catherine II, the emperor's crowned grandmother, tried to oblivion at one time. Whatever it was, but having familiarized himself with Pushkin's work, Nikolai made only one correction - he changed the title of the book from The History of Pugachev to The History of the Pugachev Revolt. A little later, the work was published at the expense of the state, but it did not have much success: someone, despite the tsar's approval, considered it a seditious publication, and someone simply did not perceive Pushkin as a historian and was not interested in his research.

What were Pushkin's claims to the emperor

Despite the patronizing attitude towards the poet and the support provided more than once, Nicholas I, along with a feeling of gratitude, more than once aroused open irritation in Pushkin. The first time this happened after Alexander Sergeevich was awarded the title of chamber junker, which was usually awarded to young people after graduating from the lyceum. Pushkin at that time turned 34 years old long ago, and he considered it indecent and humiliating to be a junior courtier.

The second thing that pissed him off was jealousy of the emperor because of his wife Natalya, about whom there were rumors in aristocratic circles about her love affair with Nicholas I. Whether this was true is unknown, but from the surviving letters of Pushkin, one can judge his coquetry wife with the tsar and the painful experiences of the poet, who asked Natalie not to flirt at balls.

Unlike the previous emperor Alexander, all of Pushkin's claims to Nicholas were of a personal nature. In matters of governing the country, the poet saw only positive things, which he reflected in the cycle of "Nicholas Poems".

Did the higher power have anything to do with Pushkin's fatal duel?

With age, the politician was less and less interested in Pushkin - after marriage, he began to dream of solitude with his family in the village, away from the gentlemen who surrounded his wife. In addition, the poet was overcome by a creative crisis, and he wanted to change the scenery, hoping to find inspiration in the bosom of nature. However, Natalia did not agree - despite her 4 children, the 25-year-old woman was still the first beauty of the balls, which she was not going to change for a reclusive life in the village.

Natalie's frivolity, which consisted of a desire to please men, led to the fact that a 24-year-old French officer Georges Dantes fell in love with her. And again rumors spread: this time the secular society began to discuss the romantic love of the Frenchman, and to speculate about the connection between him and Pushkin.

After an anonymous libel was delivered to the address of Alexander Sergeevich in November, in which he was called a cuckold, Pushkin could not stand it - he challenged Dantes to a duel. However, friends and outright alarmed Natalya Nikolaevna managed to postpone the fight, but they could not completely prevent it: on January 27, 1837, after a second call, Dantes fired a fatal shot, which inflicted a mortal wound on the poet.

Summing up, we can confidently say: neither the emperor nor his entourage had anything to do with this tragedy - it took place with the participation of completely different persons.

But among the Russian classics conflicts and enmity were not uncommon.