1825–1826

1825–1826 is a biographical and editorial date attached to the poem’s Mikhailovskoe setting and to a remembered episode from Pushkin’s Lyceum years. In the translation’s notes, it helps orient readers between the poem’s scenes and the life and literary history that the surrounding commentary brings into view.

Mikhailovskoe and the poem

The heading “(Mikhailovskoe, 1825–6)” places the poem’s composition or setting in a specific time and place. The evidence does not explain the circumstances further, but the dating gives the work a historical frame rather than leaving its poetic voice wholly detached from Pushkin’s life.

The date in the biographical notes

The notes describe a public examination at the Lyceum where the young Pushkin presented a poem. The translator says this touching scene left a lasting impression on Pushkin’s mind, and relates it to the youthful literary memory evoked in the canto. The episode is thus presented not simply as a biographical detail but as an experience that persisted in memory and returned in verse.

Editorial framing

The edition positions its explanatory notes as a guide to allusions that may otherwise remain obscure, while acknowledging that some satirical references have lost their original social context. Its date references place literary recollection alongside biographical chronology: 1825–1826 marks the Mikhailovskoe frame, while the Lyceum examination supplies an earlier remembered scene. The notes thereby make the poem’s temporal layers legible without claiming that every allusion can be definitively resolved.