ABSTRACT
Alexander Pushkin had also underestimated the animosity Russians had inspired in the Turkish and Persian populations. When, with his own eyes, he had witnessed the atrocities perpetrated by the Russian soldiery, and the butchery of the retreating troops, he knew that were he to be captured by the Turks, caught sneaking alone toward the sea, he would have been executed at once. A year before Journey to Arzrum was brought out, Count Paskevich, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, had invited Pushkin to visit him in the hope that the poet would use his talents to depict the Turkish campaign. Apart from the few lines recounting his ostensible crossing of the Russian border, it would be futile to look for answers to the mystery of Pushkin’s motives in Journey to Arzrum. Pushkin’s moral position in Journey to Arzrum is clearly ambiguous: doubtless, he had taken part in glorifying the conquerors of the Trans-Caucasus.
