Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845

In the following spirited little piece Púshkin has commemorated an incident which occurred in the reign of Peter the Great, and which is probably sufficiently familiar to the readers of Russian history, to render unnecessary a more than passing allusion to the circumstance. Among the thousand traits of grandeur recorded of the Hero-Tsar, there are few more affecting and sublime than that commemorated in the anecdote of his indulgence to Ménstchikoff, who had betrayed his master's confidence, and committed various acts of peculation and oppression. Peter pardoned his unfaithful but repentant minister, and celebrated this act of generous clemency by a magnificent banquet, at which he exhibited to his admiral every testimony of renewed confidence and affection. This banquet is the subject of the following lines, in which all the allusions are probably familiar to our readers, not excepting the mention made of the imposing ceremony spoken of in the third stanza; that is to say, the grand review of the infant Russian fleet, at which the Emperor assisted in person, and in the rank of Vice-Admiral. The whole squadron—recently created by the genius and wisdom of the Prince, and freshly covered with naval glory, till then unknown in Russia—was anchored in the Neva, and along its line slowly passed, under a general salute of cannon, and accompanied by the acclamations of the crews of the men-of-war, the old pleasure-boat, the "baubling shallop," which had first suggested to Peter's mind the idea and the possibility of giving Russia a navy. This small vessel, still most religiously preserved in the fortress, and affectionately called by the Russians the "Grandfather" of their navy, had been constructed for the amusement of the Tsar Alexéi, by Brandt, a Dutch shipbuilder, who had visited Moscow during the reign of that prince—the father of the great regenerator of Russia. The vessel, a small sloop rigged in the Dutch manner, had remained neglected on the lake of Peresláv-Zalévskii (in the province of Vladímir) till it was remarked by Peter, who, from seeing it, not only conceived the idea of creating a navy, but made it the means of acquiring for himself the first rudiments of practical seamanship. As a ship in the Russian language is a masculine substantive, the familiar title given to this immortal little vessel is "grandfather," or "grandsire," a word of which we have thought it necessary to transpose the gender, in obedience to that poetical and striking idiom in our tongue, by which a ship always rigorously appertains to the gentler and lovelier sex. In our version, therefore, the "grandsire" becomes—we trust without any loss of dignity or interest—the "grandame" of the Russian navy:—

The following lines (which are not without a kind of fantastic prettiness of their own) do not seen to need any remark or explanation, unless it be the circumstance of the poet's qualifying the sky of St Petersburg with the epithet of pale-green . It may be observed that this peculiar tint (exactly enough expressed by the adjective) has struck almost all the strangers who have visited the northern capital, and has been repeatedly noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl, Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the St Petersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or at night) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of a Travelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks of the Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham or the Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November—"let rude ears be absent!") to the environs of the Thames:—

In the short and rapid sketch of Púshkin's life and writings which will be found prefixed to this selection, we made particular mention of the strong impression produced upon the Russian public by the appearance of the noble lines addressed to the Sea . We beg to subjoin a translation of this short but vigorous poem, which has become classical in the author's country; an honour it certainly deserves, not only from the simple grace and energy of the language, but from the weight, dignity, and verity of the thoughts. The lines were written by the poet on his quitting the shores of the Caspian, where he had so long dwelt in solitude, gathering inspiration from the sublime Nature by which he was surrounded; and the poem cannot but be considered as a worthy outpouring of the feelings which a long communion with that Nature was so capable of communicating to a mind like that of Púshkin. Of the two great men whose recent death was naturally recalled to the poet's recollection by the view of the ocean, the name of one—Napoleon—is specifically mentioned; that of the other is—Byron. Seldom, in the prosecution of his difficult but not ungrateful task, has the translator felt the imperfection of his art, or the arduous nature of its object, more keenly than when attempting to give something like an adequate version of the eleventh and twelfth stanzas of this majestic composition. In order to give some idea of the fidelity of his imitation, we will subjoin the literal English of these eight lines:—