Alexander Pushkin’s mystification: who was the late “nice fellow” Ivan Petrovich Belkin?

Recently discovered documents from Russian archives have helped to disclose one of literary mystifications conceived by Alexander Pushkin for his contemporaries and generations to come. Over almost 200 years researchers of Pushkin have never questioned the fictitious origin of Ivan Petrovich Belkin, “the author” of “Tales of Belkin”. However, the previously unknown archive materials provide the evidence that Ivan Belkin, the “author of the tales”, had a real prototype, i.e. Major Fyodor Stepanovoch Belkin, a landlord from the Kaluga province. The Belkins lived in their estate in the Maloyaroslavets uyezd. Being a close neighbour of the Goncharovs, Belkin would meet the Goncharov family and visit their estate in Polotnyaniy Zavod. In May 1830 Pushkin came to this estate to introduce himself to A.N. Goncharov, the head of the family and grandfather of his fiancée Natalya Goncharova. It was then and there, the authors argue, that Pushkin was likely and even certain to have made the acquaintance of Fyodor Stepanovoch Belkin. The Russian genius presented his bride with a “wedding bouquet” of his literary heroes and their marital unions. What made this “bouquet” look original was that “Tales of Belkin” appeared to be “authored” by her real well-known neighbour.