1820

The year 1820 marks Alexander Pushkin’s transfer from the Russian capital to Kishineff in Bessarabia: an apparent consequence of politically daring poetry, and the beginning of an extended period away from the center of his earlier social and literary life. The circumstances were not fully established, but the account connects the move to the private circulation of an ode and describes the transfer as a commuted punishment that spared him a more severe fate.

Background and Transfer

In 1820 Pushkin was transferred to the bureau of Lieutenant-General Inzoff at Kishineff, in Bessarabia. The account presents the reason cautiously: the transfer was probably connected with his composing and privately circulating an “Ode to Liberty,” though the attendant circumstances had never been thoroughly brought to light. It also suggests that his admiration for Byron may have contributed to his political difficulties.

The ode’s tenor, particularly its audacious allusion to the murder of Emperor Paul, the father of the reigning Tsar, was considered sufficiently provocative that, according to the account, deportation to Siberia had been prepared for Pushkin. The sentence was commuted after the intercession of Karamzine and Joukovski. Thus the 1820 transfer was both a real removal from the capital and a less severe outcome than the punishment said to have been contemplated.

Exile and Public Account

Pushkin appeared anxious to mislead the public about why he had suddenly disappeared from the capital. In an ode to Ovid composed around this period, he styled himself a “voluntary exile,” presenting the departure as chosen rather than as the consequence of political pressure. The contrast between the probable circumstances of his transfer and this public description makes 1820 a turning point not only in location, but also in how his absence was represented.

Four Years Away

During the four succeeding years, Pushkin made numerous excursions through the lands around the basin of the Euxine, including the Crimea and the Caucasus. The account characterizes this as a nomadic life amid natural beauty and says that it powerfully developed his poetic genius. The transfer therefore opened onto a sustained period of travel and artistic formation, rather than a single change of posting.

Pushkin later referred to this period in the final canto of Eugene Oneguine, where he enumerated influences that had contributed to the formation of his Muse. The retrospective reference gives the years begun in 1820 a place in the poem’s account of its author’s poetic development: an imposed departure from the capital became part of the experience through which his literary voice was formed.