Oriental Studies (Apr 2018)
“You don’t Prattle in French...” (A. S. Pushkin’s Address “To a Kalmyk Maiden”: from the Materials to the Comments)
Abstract
The article contains historical and literary commentary on the line “You don`t prattle in French…” from A. Pushkin’s Address “To a Kalmyk Maiden” (May 15-22, 1829). To comment it a number of draft quatrains are involved, which contrast Kalmyk Maiden portrait description with an epigrammatic generalized portrait of Russian noblewoman with her cardinal trait - halfeuropean halfenlightenment. Addressing to some fragments of the poem “Earl Nulin”, the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, to Pushkinian literary criticism, to historical and literary as well as to historical and everyday materials of the era, is necessary to cover a subject matter of the Russian language and national culture, mentioned in the commented line of the address “To a Kalmyk Maiden”.
