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We all learned by heart: “My first friend, my priceless friend…” And we loved the unknown Pushchin just because Pushkin loved him. Is this not enough? Certainly, if you know him better.
Ivan Pushchin was loved by his friends, and like-minded people, and guards in prisons and hard labor. For many, he was a model of Man. I try to inspire my students that Pushchin is the absolute embodiment of nobility, honor, chivalry, almost lost in our time. Falling in love with him, we, as it were, “try on” the famous words of Ryleev: “Whoever loves Pushchin is certainly a rare person himself.” If! In the family of his parents – Ivan and Anastasia Pushchin – there were 12 children. All of them led a normal life for the descendants of a noble family: their daughters married wealthy people, their sons reached considerable ranks, and only Ivan Ivanovich did not go further than a lieutenant and … became known throughout Russia. His whole life is a chain of actions, subject to inner convictions, which were formed in his lyceum years and predetermined his fate. “All people as moral beings are equal to each other, for all have the same nature, from which the general rights of mankind arise,” this thought of the lyceum professor Alexander Kunitsyn so sunk into the soul of Ivan Pushchin that he gave his life to its embodiment: he voluntarily abandoned the officer career and went to work in the Moscow court, joined a secret society and became one of the most active Decembrists. Condemned to hard labor and exile, he calmly accepted his fate. In Siberia, he taught the children of local residents, helped the orphaned children of the Decembrists … Returning after 30 years of hard labor and exile, Pushchin creates the main work of his life – Notes on Pushkin, wonderful sincerity memories of his brilliant friend. Until the end of his life, Ivan Pushchin liked to repeat the words of N.M. Karamzin: “The morning is clear – my soul is clear.”
His dates
- February 4, 1798: son Ivan was born in the family of Senator Ivan Petrovich Pushchin.
- 1811-1817: studying at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.
- 1817-1822: Service in the Horse Guards Regiment.
- 1823-1825: service in the Moscow court.
- December 14, 1825: participation in the uprising on Senate Square.
- 1826-1856: prison, penal servitude and exile in Siberia.
- May 22, 1857: Married to Natalya Fonvizina, widow of the Decembrist Mikhail Fonvizin.
- April 3, 1859: died, buried in Bronnitsy near Moscow.
Keys to Understanding
Lyceum brotherhood
Six years at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum is the happiest time in Ivan Pushchin’s life. Both in hard labor and in exile, he certainly celebrates October 19 – the traditional lyceum anniversary. In 1845, he wrote to the first director of the lyceum, Yegor Antonovich Engelhardt from Yalutorovsk: “Today I woke up in the lyceum hall. The cast iron on my ring has worn out a little, but the memory is fresh. The director of the lyceum presented cast-iron rings to the first graduates, and Ivan Pushchin, like all “cast-iron workers”, sacredly kept them.
Not a Service, but a Service
The military career is developing very successfully, however, in January 1823, Pushchin leaves the service in the artillery and takes the place of a court judge in the Criminal Chamber. The huge Pushchin family was agitated: a brilliant guards officer, a well-born nobleman, the grandson of the admiral of Catherine’s times, the son of a senator, is breaking his biography so sharply and inexplicably! But Pushchin was unshakable, by his example he wanted to show that for a noble person “there is no low state in serving the Fatherland.” During his two years of service, he managed to help many people.
“It’s not hard to live when it’s good, but you have to be content when it’s bad.”
Code of honor
The Decembrists had a password – “Honor, benefit, Russia.” For Pushchin, these concepts were absolute. He was one of the most consistent revolutionaries. Pushchin was not at all sure of success, but the laws of honor required active action. After the defeat of the uprising, he calmly waited for the arrest in his father’s house. His lyceum friend Alexander Gorchakov (the future Minister of Foreign Affairs) brought him a passport and money, begging him not to waste a minute and leave Russia. But it was not in Pushchin’s custom to flee. Loyalty to the laws of honor cost him 0 years in prison, hard labor and exile.
Love of life
In March 1830, he wrote to Engelhardt: “I can safely assure you that, whatever my situation, I will firmly endure it and will always find in myself such comforts that no human power can deprive me of.” He tries in every possible way to make life easier for those around him, moreover, he encourages not only the exiled Decembrists, but also friends who have remained at large. In 1852, he wrote to his friend Fyodor Matyushkin, a lyceum student: “It will seem strange to you that in Shlisselburg (the most terrible prison) I had the happiest moments. How it’s done, I don’t know. I only know that this force supported me, and now supports me.
About it
- Ivan Pushchin “Works and Letters” in 2 volumes, Nauka, 1999.
- “Friends of Pushkin”, Pravda, 1986.
- Nathan Eidelman “Big Jeannot” Vagrius, 2004.