The assassination of Paul I is mentioned in the preface as the politically charged subject of an allusion in Alexander Pushkin’s “Ode to Liberty.” The poem’s reference to the murdered emperor, father of the reigning Tsar, is presented as one reason Pushkin’s work could provoke severe official punishment and contribute to his transfer from the capital.

Political Context

The preface connects the allusion to Pushkin’s transfer in 1820 to the bureau of Lieutenant-General Inzoff at Kishineff in Bessarabia. It says that this move was probably prompted by Pushkin’s composition and private circulation of the “Ode to Liberty,” while stressing that the accompanying circumstances had never been fully brought to light. The text therefore frames the connection as a plausible explanation, not a conclusively documented account.

The Allusion and Its Consequences

The ode’s treatment of Paul I’s assassination was considered audacious by aristocratic standards. The preface says that the poem’s tenor, particularly its reference to the emperor’s murder, was severe enough to merit the Siberian deportation reportedly prepared for Pushkin. Karamzin and Zhukovsky intervened on his behalf, and the threatened sentence was commuted to transfer to Kishineff.

Public Account and Historical Uncertainty

Pushkin later presented himself as a voluntary exile in an ode to Ovid composed around this time. The preface contrasts that public description with its own account of political pressure surrounding the “Ode to Liberty,” suggesting that the circumstances of his disappearance from the capital were obscured. The assassination thus matters here less as a narrated event than as a dangerous historical reference whose use in poetry shaped the interpretation of Pushkin’s exile.