ABSTRACT
Life in the young capital of the Novorossiysk kray (district) went its own way, and Alexander Pushkin’s life went its own, and nothing foretold trouble. A hundred years later, Vladislav Khodasevich, the emigre poet, already in Berlin and Marienbad, was the first to note that in Pushkin’s works “the government’s disfavor is represented in the form of a bad climate.” Mikhail Vorontsov’s father, Semyon Vorontsov, was Russian ambassador to England for twenty years. He had distinguished himself in battle with the Turks in Bessarabia, and died in London. Vorontsov’s attitude to Pushkin was benevolent in the extreme. A connoisseur of ancient literature and books of the Renaissance epoch, Vorontsov inculcated in Pushkin an interest in history, in archival documents. Vorontsov built a port and settlements, developed the economy, established an administrative apparatus, raised the level of culture, and as an Odessa author wrote, was a patron and protector of Jews and foreigners.
