ABSTRACT
In her letters from Riga, Anna Kern tried to convince Alexander Pushkin to submit a petition to the tsar. In fact, a draft of this petition had already been prepared; it was a facet of Pushkin’s new plan of action, designed to take into account all the failures and oversights of the past ones. Following the counsel of his close friends, Pushkin decided at last to set his pride aside and admit even to those misdeeds which he had never committed. This was done in the hope that the tsar would take pity and release him. A number of documents bear witness to his intention to travel to Riga, but none refer to the poet’s reasons for the trip. Pskov’s leading surgeon was the garrison staff physician Vasily Sokolsky, but Pushkin preferred not to be examined by a serious doctor. Instead, he chose a man with whose reputation he was acquainted, and whom he later met at Alexey Peshchurov’s place.
