Pro et contra: “Pushkin's speech” by I. Shmelev and “Poems to Pushkin” by M. Tsvetaeva

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of Ivan Shmelev’s “Pushkin Speech” and Marina Tsvetaeva’s cycle “Poems to Pushkin”. These texts are compared for the first time in the context of discussion, which determines the relevance and novelty of the research approach. The aim of the study is to trace the semantic and figurative overlap of these texts in a discussion perspective, without neglecting the ideological context of the emigrant cultural diaspora. An appeal to the comparativist method allowed us to consider the texts of Tsvetayeva and Shmelev as if in “double optics”. We propose the idea that the semantic energy of these texts is directed both at Pushkin’s personality and work, and at the authors themselves as archetypal recipients, modeling Pushkin’s image not only as a given, but also as a certain pattern of perception of contemporaries and descendants. We substantiate the hypothesis of an internal connection between the Tsvetayeva’s cycle and Shmelev’s “Pushkin Speech”, which was a kind of hidden dispute with Shmelev and his spiritual associates. The identification of a number of address subtexts allows us to argue that Tsvetayeva’s poems about Pushkin, integrating key poetic ideas and the poetess’ communicative and polemical tactics, became an indirect, implicit (and possibly subconscious) response to Ivan Shmelev’s speech and similar speeches on the Pushkin jubilee (I. Ilyin, P. Struve, G. Fedotov, S. Frank, S. Bulgakov and others). It is shown that Tsvetaeva’s Poems to Pushkin and Shmelev’s Pushkin Speech concentrate diametrically opposed concepts of Pushkin as a national poet. Both texts form a model of the posthumous, jubilee image of Pushkin, set the coordinates of his perception. In the Tsvetaeva’s cycle the image of Pushkin as an absolutely free personality is cultivated; at the same time, for the poetess the “musculature” of Pushkin’s writing is fundamentally important, because poetry for her is the result of hard work, not inspiration. In Shmelyov’s work there is no limitless freedom, on the contrary, Pushkin’s Muse is “obedient” to “God’s command”. Hence the idea of the God-inspired nature of Pushkin’s poems, his mystical interaction with higher forces. In the end it is proved that each of the analyzed authors turned to the development of the Russian national type of poet, constituted on the basis of their own poetological notions. At the same time, the article shows that these authors’ conceptions of Pushkin are included in neotraditionalist (religious-mystical) and modernist-avant-gardist cultural paradigms. The prospects of the study are linked to the further study of the perception of Pushkin’s work by the descendants - fellow writers, and the study of patterns of formation of his posthumous reputation and mythologizing, depending on the socio-cultural attitudes and philosophical demands of the time.