ABSTRACT
The official investigation regarding Alexander Pushkin’s poem “Andre Cheniei” had only come to an end shortly before. Pushkin scrambled for parallels between his life and that of the French poet, but few presented themselves. Pushkin believed that poets of all nations were brothers in inspiration. And though Russia’s bard had never met Byron or Goethe, he had internalized their images, entertained mental conversations with them, and even drew their likenesses on the pages of his manuscripts. Pushkin’s pessimism was a natural extension of the barriers put up before him, of his inability to break cleanly from system in which he was nursed. Pushkin had always been willing to compromise, and the more tolerant the authorities became to Pushkin’s minor deviations from these agreements, the less eager he was to commit them. Pushkin was rarely consistent; he reflected on his failures and made conclusions. His behavior often seemed illogical.
