The Tales of Belkin

Pushkin’s prose debut. Unadorned tales about the game of chance, where the author hides behind literary masks. His contemporaries did not appreciate the “Tales of Belkin”; later generations saw in them the beginning of great Russian prose.

The collection “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, Published by A. P.” includes five stories from provincial and Moscow life, told by various “people” to the stated compiler Belkin.

“The Shot” is a story of a duel stretched over several years—an encounter of pride, the nature of courage, and the psychology of revenge.

“The Blizzard” is a tragicomedy of a strange marriage that—years later—ends with the heroine’s meeting a stranger who has been accidentally engaged to her.

“The Undertaker” is a tale about a gloomy professional of the funeral trade (set against the cheerful grave-diggers of Shakespeare and Walter Scott), to whom the dead he once deceived appear in a dream. “Didn’t you recognize me, Prokhorov?” said the skeleton. “Do you remember retired sergeant Petr Petrovich Kurilkin—the one to whom, in 1799, you sold your first coffin—and one more, a pine one for an oak [coffin]?”

“The Stationmaster” is a variation on the plot of the “Prodigal Daughter”: against her father’s will, she runs to St. Petersburg with a hussar, but—despite his fears—doesn’t end up on the streets; instead, she marries and appears at her late father’s grave “in a carriage with six horses, with three little barsons [pageboys/young lords], and a nurse, and a black pug-faced [thing]”.

“The Gentlewoman- Peasant Girl” is a happy version of “Romeo and Juliet” set in the décor of the Russian countryside. The warring neighbors have a son and a daughter; wishing to meet the young man, not at all poor Lisa disguises herself as a peasant girl. Passionate rendezvous end in recognition of the young lady, reconciliation of the families, and a future engagement. “Readers will spare me the unnecessary duty of describing the ending.”

Here the ending is not described, but it is clear. In other cases, Pushkin builds the action according to Aristotle’s laws: the setup—peripeteia—climax, and then resolution. Yet despite the structural similarity, the “Tales of Belkin” are very diverse in subject matter and emotional tone.