1837

The year 1837 is the decisive terminus of Alexander Pushkin’s life in the biographical account: a duel on an island in the Neva left him mortally wounded, and after several days of extreme agony he died, aged thirty-seven. The account links that real death back to the poem, where the duel and reflections on Vladimir Lensky’s early death seem almost prophetic.

The Duel on the Neva

Pushkin’s final crisis grew out of anonymous letters addressed to him that insultingly insinuated misconduct by his wife. He believed he had traced them to Georges d’Anthès, a Frenchman serving in the Cavalier Guard who had been adopted by the Dutch envoy Heeckeren. Though d’Anthès had married Pushkin’s sister-in-law, the account says he had behaved improperly toward Pushkin’s wife. It later became clear that d’Anthès had not written the letters, but that discovery did not avert the duel: once a challenge had been made, an appeal to reason was treated as if it implied cowardice.

The encounter took place in February on one of the islands of the Neva. The two men fought with pistols, and the account describes the combat as determined and ferocious. Pushkin was shot before he could fire; as he fell, snow lying deep on the ground clogged his pistol’s barrel. He raised himself on one elbow and called for another pistol, insisting, “I’ve strength left to fire my shot!” After firing, he slightly wounded d’Anthès and cried “Bravo!” when he heard that his opponent had been hit. D’Anthès was only slightly contused, while Pushkin had been shot through the abdomen.

Death and Its Echo in the Poem

Pushkin was carried to his residence, where he endured several days of extreme agony before dying. The account identifies his age at death as thirty-seven and presents the manner and setting of the duel as making the sixth canto’s duel seem nearly prophetic. In particular, the poem’s reflections on Vladimir Lensky’s premature death acquire a painful biographical resonance: the fictional early extinction of a young poet appears to anticipate Pushkin’s own end, as well as the more general premature loss of genius.

The connection is an afterlife of form rather than a claim that the poem literally foretold the future. The duel in the poem gives the biographical account a language for recognizing the tragedy of 1837; Pushkin’s death, in turn, makes the poem’s treatment of Lensky’s death newly haunting. A fictional death and a historical one thus stand beside each other, bound by the shared pattern of violence cutting short a life and its promise.