Stamps from “Alexander Pushkin’s Death Centenary” Designed by Vasily Zavyalov (Mozhegov 2017)
The first Pushkin Jubilee occurred in June of 1880 in celebration of the poet’s birthday (Sandler 2004, 87). In many ways, this first jubilee was to set a precedent for what was later to come in the Soviet era (Sandler 2004, 87). The celebration took place at the opening of the Moscow monument to Pushkin, and included speakers such as Dostoevsky and Turgenev, and according Marcus C. Levitt, was a moment in which the modern Russian identity could be arranged around literature, with Pushkin being the focus of this said literature (Sanders 2004, 88). This sentiment was especially espoused by Dostoevsky, who praised Pushkin for his “idiosyncratic qualities” that corresponded with Russian uniqueness (Sandler 2004, 88) The utility of the Pushkin jubilee to serve as a way to forge a national identity would be implemented by the Soviets in the 1937 jubilee.
The 1921 Jubilee, as opposed to other post-revolutionary jubilees was not organized by the state, but rather by a group of writers and cultural activists in Petrograd. (Sandler 2004, 89) Some of the included writers were Alexander Block, Nikolai Gumilev, Mikhail Kuzmin, and Anna Akhmatova. (Sandler 2004, 89) The 1921 Jubilee was contentious on many levels in its relation to the Soviet government. For instance, both Alexander Block and Nikolai Gumilev were to be executed in August 1921 (Sander 2004, 90) Additionally, public opinion surrounding Pushkin in 1921 was split. While some believed that Pushkin was a bourgeois writer, the general environment created by the revolution produced a yearning for culture, and especially Pushkin. (Sandler 2004, 93) Lastly, contention existed around Pushkin’s role in Russian history, and the implications of this in 1921. While Anatoly Koni believed Pushkin to be an innovator like Peter the Great, and the year 1921 to be similarly the beginning of a new, opportunist future, there were those like Vladislav Khodasevich, who believed that history was not cyclical, and that a rupture has occurred so profound in Russian history that the connections to Pushkin’s time were becoming weaker and less apparent (Sandler 2004, 91-94)
In 1924, Soviet support came to the project of promoting Pushkin with Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky saying, “‘He [Pushkin] will live as an instance of the present and a great teacher of the new life.” (Sandler 2004, 97) Soviet leaders would continue to demonstrate how the poems The Bronze Horsman and “The Upas Tree” showed democratic values, and how his poems in general, but especially the “Bacchic Song” demonstrate a “cheerful materialism”. Additionally, special attention was given to Sosnovsky 1924 essay “Why Lenin Loved Pushkin”, which made the argument that Lenin shared Pushkin’s simplicity, optimism, love for nature, and respect for the common folk. This was an especially hard case to make, as Lenin wrote no essays on Pushkin. (Sandler, 2004, 98). As for the celebrations of Pushkin, much centered around his home at Mikhailovskoe which had been turned into a preserve. This however had been unsuccessful, as the tourist station outside the house looked like army barracks, and the house was in a general state delipidation, with many parts of it destroyed by the Civil War (Sandler 2004, 98)
Before examining the details of the 1937 Jubilee, it is necessary to examine the reasons as to why the Jubilee was organized in the first place. Firstly, the Jubilee was the decision of Stalin, who, opposed to many revolutionaries of his period, read classical Russian literature including Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Stalin, who subscribed to all the Russian emigree publications feared that the Russian emigree population would claim Pushkin was their own, and therefore take away that powerful piece of Russian heritage from the Soviets (Moszhegov 2017). Secondly, the 1937 Jubilee was to create a sense of unity in the Soviet Union — both unity of culture, and unity of ideology. This unity was carried out as a policy when the Writer’s Union started requiring its permission for any organization to use Pushkin materials (Sandler 2004, 109). Thirdly, the Jubilee was supposed to contrast the Russian peasant of Pushkin’s time, who was unable to read, and the Soviet worker of 1937, who was a literate and proud member of the proletariat (Sandler 2004, 87) Lastly, the Jubilee was used to justify the Terror of 1937. For instance, Trotsky’s hirelings (naimity), who in the Stalinist imagination are traitors to the state, are called the same things as the foreign hirlings who murdered Pushkin. (Sandler 2004, 112) By doing this, the Stalinist regime was attempting to link trotskyists, and the murders of Russia’s literary god.
The scale of the 1937 Jubilee was massive. Directed under the All-Union Pushkin Committee, the jubilee included the publication of Pushkin’s works, the publication of scholarly works on Pushkin, the creation of child-accessible Pushkin texts, the creation of poster and postcards centered around Pushkin, the composition of operas and songs based on Pushkin, the composition of musical accompaniments to Pushkin’s poems, the creation of paintings and sculptures of Pushkin, the instillation of museum exhibits dedicated to Pushkin, the staging of plays either based on Pushkin’s works or based on his life, the filming of movies based on Pushkin’s themes, the broadcasting of Pushkin centered material on the radio by writers, critics, producers, singers, and actors, and the organizing of factory meetings on Pushkin. (The Pushkin Centenary) One effort that should be highlighted is the publishing of Pushkin’s work into the various language of the USSR. Thirty editions of Pushkin’s works in translation were published in Belarusian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Tyruk, Turkoman, German, Mari, and other languages, reaching a total circulation of 200,000 copies. Additionally, the Soviet government used the 1937 Jubile to stimulate the work of young poets by initiating the writing of the biography “Pushkin” — the first biography to be written about Pushkin in verse. The work was written under the direction of P. Antokolsky and included the contributions of V. Dergavin, N. Zheleznov, S. Valilev, A Aniger, E. Dolmatovsky, S. Mikhalkov, P. Panchenko, and others. (The Pushkin Centenary)
The actual celebration of Pushkin was on February 10th, 1937 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Present was the elite of the Communist Party and Stalin. The broadcasted event started with Andrei Bubnov proclaiming, “Pushkin is ours! It is only in a country of socialist culture that the name of the immortal genius is surrounded with ardent love; it is only in our country the Pushkin’s works have become a treasure for all the people.” (Mozhegov 2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPXZFXw2h18
Bibliography
Mozhegov, Vladimir. “The Untold Story: Why Stalin Created a Cult of Alexander Pushkin.” last modified February 14th, 2017. https://www.rbth.com/arts/literature/2017/02/14/pushkin-soviet-god_701618
Sandler, Stephanie. Commemorating Pushkin: Russia’s Myth of a National Poet. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.
“The Pushkin Centenary: Preparations in the USSR.” The Slavonic and East European Review 15, no. 44 (1937): 309-27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203235.
