An octoroon

I read this morning in the latest number of the NYRB, that Pushkin, Russia's national poet, perhaps their version of Shakespeare, was a well attested octoroon.

It seems that at the time of Peter the Great, there was something of a fashion among the rich in Russia to have negro servants, usually sourced through Constantinople. One such was a favourite of Peter the Great, a favourite who went on to attain high office and a position in high society - and to be the great grandfather of Pushkin. Who was, it seems, a terrible snob in matters of ancestry, keen to trace illustrious ancestors back to the troubled times after the death of Ivan the Terrible - the dark ages indeed. He was also well aware of his black heritage, which has been made much of since by literary historians and other literary types. While black poets wonder to what extent he might be considered one of their own.

I did not read reference 2 when it came out, but I did read reference 1 when it came out, arriving with me just a few days ago. It seems that the unpleasant nationalist streak which surfaces in Russia from time to time, is busy cleansing the ethnic origins of all their national heroes. Only true born Russians are allowed, with no taint from Western Europe, let alone Africa. Not clear where the Ukraine fits into this scheme.

So I read that a disabled veteran - quite possibly an autodidact - has spent 40 years compiling a well-regarded, monster genealogy of Pushkin, running to five thousand names and stretching a thousand years into the past. A veteran who is made of the right stuff, a sturdy man of the people, true to his Russian roots. Which includes leaving out this particular grandfather. One wonders, at five thousand names, whether he has time to read any poetry.

PS 1: the original of the painting snapped above is held by the All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, in Saint Petersburg. Where it looks a lot more battered than it does here.

PS 2: for the avoidance of doubt, I should say that I read very little poetry, although I did once read and like 'Paradise Lost'. Perhaps it was the risqué engravings by Doré which did it. Popular in their day as acceptable Sabbath viewing.

References

Reference 1: Cover-ups & 'Uncoverings' - Kathleen Parvé, NYRB - 2022.

Reference 2: The First Russian: An unfinished novel about his African great-grandfather provides the best sense of how Pushkin considered his own Blackness - Jennifer Wilson, NYRB - 2022.

Reference 3: Portrait Of Alexander Pushkin - Vasily Tropinin - 1827.