Pushkin - T. Binyon J.

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      On the morrow, with a penny candle,

      I will appear before the holy icon:

      My friend! I am still alive,

      Though was once beneath death’s sickle:

      Sazonov was my servant

      And Peschl – my physician.16

      Vasily Malinovsky was forty-six when he became director of the Lycée. He was an odd choice, since he had no previous experience in education. He had been a diplomat, but had held no post since 1801. While with the embassy in London, he had published A Discourse on Peace and War, which anticipated Woodrow Wilson in suggesting that peace could be maintained by the establishment of a league of nations. And in 1802, like others at this time, he had put forward a project for the emancipation of the serfs – a reform which was only put into effect in 1861. He carried his liberal idealism into his new post, being responsible for the ban on corporal punishment. But his tenure was short-lived: he died, after a sudden illness, in March 1814. His death was followed by the period called by Pushkin ‘anarchy’, and by Pushchin ‘the interregnum’,17 when the school had no director. It was governed sometimes by a committee of the teachers, sometimes by a succession of individual teachers, each abruptly appointed as temporary director by Razumovsky and as abruptly dismissed after some disagreement or minor scandal.

      Anarchy came to an end in March 1816, when the forty-year-old Egor Antonovich Engelhardt became the school’s director. Born in Riga and of German-Italian parentage, Engelhardt enjoyed the patronage of Alexander, and on occasion was to make use of this to the school’s advantage. Unlike Malinovsky, he had some qualifications for the post, having been the director of the St Petersburg Pedagogic Institute. But whereas Malinovsky’s aim had been to form virtuous individuals, imbued with high civic ideals, ‘Engelhardt was chiefly concerned with turning his charges into “des cavaliers galants et des chevaliers servants”.’18 Indeed, the social life of the pupils outside the walls of the Lycée – absent before – was one of Engelhardt’s main concerns. He entertained them at his house in the evenings, took them for walks and drives in the neighbourhood, organized picnics and skating parties, providing, on all these occasions, feminine company from his own family or from those of friends and acquaintances in Tsarskoe Selo: ‘In a word, our director understood that forbidden fruit can be a dangerous attraction, and that freedom, guided by an experienced hand, can preserve youth from many mistakes,’ wrote Pushchin sagely.19

      Above all he was concerned to establish ‘amical relations’ between himself and the lycéens, guiding himself by the maxim that ‘only through a heartfelt sympathy with the joys and sorrows of one’s pupils can one win their love’.20 Many succumbed to his wooing; for some he became a surrogate father, and the correspondence between himself and a number of former pupils, lasting in some cases until his death in 1862, testifies to the sincere affection in which he was held. Others, however, held themselves aloof. Among these was Pushkin. ‘Why Pushkin rejected all the attentions of the director and his wife remains an unsolved mystery for me,’ wrote Pushchin forty years later.21

      The lycéens, thrown intimately together, isolated from outside influence, never leaving the Lycée from one year’s end to the next, formed a close-knit society: indeed, they referred to themselves as ‘a nation’, emphasizing their independence and unity. An extraordinarily strong esprit de corps bound the group together, persisting long after they had quitted the Lycée. For most, 19 October remained a significant anniversary throughout their lives. Pushkin had known little parental affection, and was now, in addition, cut off from his family: though his mother visited him in January 1812, he next saw her in April 1814, after the family had moved to St Petersburg. For him, more than for most of his companions, the Lycée nation became a replacement for the family. The bond was too strong for him to accept, as others did, Engelhardt as a surrogate parent.

      Of his tutors only Aleksandr Kunitsyn, the young teacher of moral and political science whose speech had so impressed Alexander, had a lasting influence: his teachings on natural law, on the rights and obligations of the citizen, the relationship between the individual and society are reflected in Pushkin’s work. ‘He created us, nourished our flame/He placed the cornerstone,/He lit the pure lamp,’22 Pushkin wrote of him in 1825; and, sending him in January 1835 a copy of his History of the Pugachev Rebellion, inscribed it ‘To Aleksandr Petrovich Kunitsyn from the Author as a token of deep respect and gratitude’.23

      Other than as a poet, he had an undistinguished school career. In November 1812 the academic and moral supervisor, Martyn Piletsky, wrote of him:

      His talents are more brilliant than fundamental, his mind more ardent and subtle than deep. His application to study is moderate, as diligence has not yet become a virtue with him. Having read a great number of French books, often inappropriate to his age, he has filled his memory with many successful passages of famous authors; he is also reasonably well-read in Russian literature, and knows many fables and light verses. His knowledge is generally superficial, though he is gradually accustoming himself to a more thorough mode of thought. Pride and vanity, which can make him shy, a sensibility of heart, ardent outbursts of temper, frivolity and an especial volubility combined with wit are his chief qualities. At the same time his good-nature is evident; recognizing his weaknesses, he is willing, with some success, to accept advice […] In his character generally there is neither constancy nor firmness.24

      The comments of the different subject teachers echo Piletsky’s assessment: ‘His reasonable achievement is due more to talent than to diligence’; ‘very lazy, inattentive and badly-behaved in the class’; ‘empty-headed, frivolous, and inclined to temper’.25 In the list of pupils, ordered according to their deportment, which was drawn up at regular intervals, Pushkin’s place was invariably towards the bottom: twenty-third in 1812; twenty-fourth, twenty-eighth and twenty-sixth in the three following years. His best subjects at school were Russian literature, French literature and fencing. In the final examinations, taken in May 1817, he was judged ‘excellent’ in those three subjects; ‘very good’ in Latin literature and state economics and finances; and ‘good’ in scripture and Biblical studies, in logic and moral philosophy, in natural, private and public law, and in Russian civil and criminal law. He had also studied, his graduation certificate noted, history, geography, statistics, mathematics and the German language.

      Tall Jeannot

      Without knowing how

      Makes a million bons mots,

      While our Frenchman

      Lauds his own taste

      With a string of four-letter words.26

      Anton Delvig was plump, clumsy and phenomenally lazy. He was a very poor student, continually rebuked

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