Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech

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Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech
PushkinMskVblizi.jpg
Pushkin Monument in Moscow
Location Moscow
Participants Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

"Dostoyevsky's Pushkin Speech" was a speech delivered by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in honour of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin on 20 June [ O.S. 8 June] 1880 at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow. [1] The speech is considered a crowning achievement of his final years and elevated him to the rank of a prophet while cementing his stature further as the greatest contemporary Russian writer. [2]

The Pushkin Speech, which Dostoyevsky gave less than a year before his death, was delivered at the Strastnaya Square after a two-hour religious service at the monastery across the street. [3] The address praised Pushkin as a beloved poet, a prophet, and the embodiment of Russia's national ideals. [4] There are some who note that the speech was not really about Pushkin but about Russia, and also Dostoyevsky himself. [4]

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References

  1. Levitt, Marcus C. (1989). Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 . Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp.  124–125. ISBN   978-0801422508.
  2. Sekirin, Peter (1997). The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist from Contemporaries' Memoirs and Rare Periodicals, Most Translated Into English for the First Time, with a Detailed Lifetime Chronology and Annotated Bibliography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 238. ISBN   0786402644.
  3. Moss, Walter (2002). Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. London: Anthem Press. p. 219. ISBN   9780857287632.
  4. 1 2 Cassedy, Steven (2005). Dostoevsky's Religion. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 80. ISBN   0804751374.