Page:Poems, Alexander Pushkin, 1888.djvu/180

174 Nobleman by cross. There are two kinds of noblemen in Russia: those who inherit their title, and those who acquire it. Whoever attains a certain cross as a reward for his service under the government (not, alas, the cross of true nobility, Christ's cross!) becomes thereby a "nobleman."

Our nobility but recent is: the more recent it, the nobler 't is. This was written fifty years ago, and thousands of miles away from here. But one would almost believe these lines written in our day, and at no great distance from Commonwealth Avenue,—so true is it that man remains, after all, the same in all climes, at all times.&hellip;

Of Nizhny Novgorod the citizen plain. The butcher Minin is here meant, who, with Prince Pozharsky, delivered Moscow from the Poles just before the Romanoffs were called to the throne.

We upon it laid our hands. Six Pushkins signed this call, and two had to lay their hand to the paper, because they could not write their own names.

Simply Pushkin, not Moussin. The Moussin-Pushkins of that day were a very rich and influential family.

MY MONUMENT. (Page 64.)

In its present form, this poem did not appear till 1881. After Pushkin's death it appeared only when altered by Zhukofsky in several places. The Alexander Column being the tallest monument in Russia, Pushkin, writing for Russians, used that as an illustration; but the government could not let the sacrilege pass,—of a poet's monument ever being taller, even figuratively, than a Russian emperor's. In 1837, therefore, the poet was made to say, "Napoleon's column." The line in the fourth stanza, which speaks of Freedom, was altered to "That I was useful by the living charm of verse," and in this mutilated