Far Eastern Text of A.S. Pushkin

In this work, the author focuses on A. S. Pushkin's interest to the Far East and to the problem of its development by Russian pioneers expressed in several works on respective topics. The purpose of the article is to identify the reasons why the poet keeps returning to the “Kamchatka” themes and to clarify possible creative ideas related to the development of the theme of the conquest of the far Trans-Urals. The study was based on the materials of little-studied unfinished sketches written by A.S. Pushkin in 1836-1837, written while he was reading the notes of the participant of the Second Kamchatka Expedition S.P. Krasheninnikov called "Description of the Land of Kamchatka" (1755). A comparative analysis of three well-known fragments ("About Kamchatka", "Kamchatka Affairs (from 1694 to 1740)", "Outline of the Beginning of an Article about Kamchatka") shows that Pushkin was interested not so much in ethnographic and natural-science information about Kamchatka, as in the history of its development by the Cossacks, uneasy relationship between colonizers and indigenous people. The plots chosen by the writer have something in common with the two main themes of Russian history for him – the reforms of Peter the Great and the Cossack freemen. The stylistic heterogeneity of the sketches examined suggests that Pushkin intended to write both documentary and fictional works about the accession of Kamchatka to Russia. Probably, such close attention to the Far East is caused not only by the poet’s interest in national history but also by some biographical reasons, including his unfulfilled desire to visit the eastern lands. The author makes a conclusion about the influence of A.S. Pushkin for the next generation of writers who have repeatedly addressed the “Far Eastern theme”, which continues to remain in great demand to this day.

Far East, Pushkin, Kamchatka, Krasheninnikov, Atlasov, conquest