Yale Bulletin and Calendar

May 5, 2000

Volume 28, Number 31

Aleksandr Pushkin

Celebration of Russian literature
on view at Beinecke

An exhibition celebrating Russian literature is on view at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., now through July 15.

"Pushkin to Nabokov: Russian Literature at Yale," celebrates the bicentenary of Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837), considered to be Russia's greatest writer, and the centenary of Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), the best-known exiled Russian writer of the 20th century. The two writers were permanently linked in 1964 when Nabokov published his controversial English version of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin," a verse novel of failed love and senseless death.

The exhibition at the Beinecke begins with an array of Pushkin's works in their first editions. Before dying at age 38 in a duel, Pushkin wrote lyric poetry, narrative poems and tales ("The Gypsies," "Count Nulin" and "The Bronze Horseman"), prose fiction (the so-called Belkin tales, "The Queen of Spades" and "The Captain's Daughter") and plays, such as "Boris Godunov," establishing his reputation as Russia's national poet.

On display from the "Golden Age," demarked by Pushkin's death in 1837 and Anton Chekhov's in 1904, are Nikolay Gogol's novel "Dead Souls," Ivan Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Possessed," as well as the 1897 edition of Chekhov's "Plays," which includes the first book appearance of "The Seagull" and "Uncle Vanya."

Authors of the "Silver Age" (1900-17) represented in the exhibition include the poet Konstantin Bal'mont and the short story writer Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1933. Maxim Gorky was the most famous member of this literary generation; his novel "Mother" is also on display.

On view from the early decades of the last century are the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky, the most prominent member of the Futurist movement, along with books and collaborative publications by Velimir Khlebnikov and Iliazd, among others.

The 20th-century section of the exhibition includes four tiny volumes, all published in the 1920s, by the acclaimed poet Anna Akhmatova, and four titles by Marina Tsvetaeva. Boris Pasternak, who won the Nobel Prize in 1958 for his novel "Doctor Zhivago," is represented by an early volume of poems. Books written by Nina Berberova, whose international renown began with the French translation of her story "The Accompanist," as well as books once owned by her, constitute an important part of the exhibition. Berberova's papers are held at the Beinecke Library.

The author of "Lolita" is represented by books spanning four decades. Nabokov is one of a handful of authors who have written successfully in two languages. The exhibition includes five novels from the Russian phase of his career as well as his first novel in English, "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," the first edition of "Lolita," which was published in Paris because no American firm would accept it, the "Eugene Onegin" translation and his autobiography.

The Beinecke is open for exhibition viewing Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, call (203) 432-2977.

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