Not a topic for "Military Review"? We object … Considering that Pushkin, as the classic used to say, is our everything, we consider it a great sin not to inform our readers that today - February 10 - is a mournful date in Russian history and culture. 180 years ago, the great poet died, who for Russia really became more than just a poet, actually creating a whole literary world, perhaps ahead of its time and setting the real literary fashion for many years to come.
The death of Alexander Sergeevich still remains the subject of rather heated discussions between historians and writers, as well as the chain of intrigues that led to the fatal shot on the Black River.
Alexander Pushkin died two days after being wounded by Georges Charles Dantes. The duel, as is well known, took place on the initiative of a French officer in connection with Pushkin's letter. The letter was addressed to the Dutch diplomat Baron Louis Gekkern, who is considered to be Dantes' adoptive parent. The Pushkin letter of the February 1837 sample contained mainly statements from 1836, when Pushkin himself challenged Georges Dantes to a duel, but that was canceled due to Dantes' marriage to the sister of Alexander Pushkin's wife, Ekaterina Goncharova.
If we talk about a brief background, it consists in the fact that in the aforementioned 1836 Alexander Pushkin received an epistolary message in which the poet was named the owner of the "patent for the right of the cuckold." It was about the alleged sympathy for his wife on the part of officer Dantes and the emperor himself. And allegedly Pushkin's wife responded with mutual sympathy. After conducting a real investigation with the involvement of specialists from the printing house, Pushkin came to the conclusion that the authors of the letter were representatives of the Gekkern family. Friends of Pushkin, in turn, stated that neither the Heckerns, but the princes Dolgorukovs and Gagarins - could have been involved in the scandalous letter in order to hurt Pushkin's pride. Ultimately (even many years later - after the graphological examination) it was established that neither the Dolgoruks nor the Gagarins themselves were the persons who wrote the letter. According to the authorship of the Heckerns, the disputes continue to this day.
Considering the fact that Pushkin was sure of the Heckern authorship of the "writings" (as he himself said about it), in February 1837 he decided to send his letter to the Dutch envoy. In the letter, Pushkin stated that he could not afford to allow Dantes and Heckern into his own house and did not consider them to be relatives even after the legalization of Georges' marriage to Ekaterina (Goncharova). As an argument for the "excommunication" of the Gekkerns from his home, Pushkin writes that he cannot admit to his doorstep a person who is "sick with syphilis." At the same time, Pushkin himself was well aware that things were heading for a duel again.
At that time, duels were inextricably linked both with the fate of Pushkin and with his work - both in poetry and in prose. True, the overwhelming majority of duels (whether it was Pushkin himself or someone else who initiated them) were canceled - either on the basis, as they would say now, of reconciliation of the parties, or for other reasons (including orders of supervisory authorities). Many were canceled, but this one was not canceled. Dantes summoned Pushkin. He shot first. Pushkin had to fire back, already lying in the snow, covered in blood. At the same time, Alexander Sergeyevich's biographers note that Pushkin's pistol was clogged with snow, and Dantes, along with his second, an employee of the French embassy Laurent D'Arsiac, was forbidden to change weapons. According to other sources, Pushkin still received another pistol, eventually wounding Dantes in the arm.
After the command of Dantes and the state authorities became aware of the duel and the death of Alexander Pushkin in it, a decision was made on criminal proceedings. The initial sentence was harsh: the death penalty for all participants in the duel, with the exception of Georges Dantes' second, Viscount D'Arsiac (he had diplomatic immunity). At the same time, it was noted that "the criminal act of the chamber-cadet Pushkin himself (…) on the occasion of his death should be consigned to oblivion."
After a while, the sentence was more than mitigated: Georges Dantes was stripped of his officer rank in Russia and expelled from the country. D'Arshiak also left the Russian Empire. Pushkin's second Danzas, arrested for two months and fired from military service, was then released and reinstated in his previous position.
A separate group of historians believes that for the state institutions of that time, both the death of Alexander Pushkin and the influence of the Russian authorities on Dantes, who ended up abroad, had their fruits. In particular, there is a version that in the future Dantes became one of the permanent informants of the Embassy of the Russian Empire in Paris, moreover, as a kind of forced measure for being freed from the gallows. In particular, one of the most important reports of the "late" Dantes is considered to be the message about the impending attempt on the life of the Russian Emperor Alexander II. The report was received through Swiss knowledgeable circles literally a day before the terrorist attack on March 1 (new style) 1881. In the end, no proper security measures were taken in St. Petersburg after the announcement. Dantes informed the Russian embassy in Paris, according to historians, in earlier years.
On February 10, 1837, Alexander Pushkin died. The loss for Russian literature and culture as a whole was enormous. And at the same time, Alexander Pushkin left a truly unique legacy, actually creating the modern Russian language and inspiring dozens of outstanding poets and writers, and not only of the 19th century, to work. Until now, Pushkin's literary storeroom remains a truly inexhaustible wealth of Russia and the whole world.
