At the end of 2022 Alma Classics published the final volume – Volume IV – of their ground-breaking edition of Pushkin’s Complete Lyrics and Shorter Poems. This is the first time that such a comprehensive edition of the work of Russia’s foremost poet, with the original Russian texts and English translations, copious notes and background information, has been published for English-language readers. To celebrate this landmark event, the Pushkin Club has invited the experienced British Pushkinist Roger Clarke, editor of this collection, to introduce some of its highlights at Pushkin House on Tuesday, 16 May.
The programme will feature some of Pushkin’s lesser known, but still pungent, witty, heartfelt and beautifully crafted, poems. On this occasion it will include less of the lighter amatory and descriptive verse, focussing instead on poems that reveal Pushkin’s views on politics and society, in Russia and abroad, and may suggest interesting parallels and contrasts with modern attitudes.
The nearly 800 poems in these volumes vary widely in content – lyrics of love and friendship, album verses, dedications, verse epistles, brief narratives, political and literary polemics, epigrams and invectives – but all display combinations of Pushkin’s characteristic intelligence, wit, sensitivity and passion, expressed with superb artistry and concision.
Together they give a fascinating insight into the poet’s turbulent emotions, views and personality during his creative lifetime, stretching from the exhilaration of the Napoleonic Wars to the increasingly stifling censorship and oppression of Nicholas I’s reign.
Roger Clarke, who has already edited and translated many of Pushkin’s major works for Alma Classics, is both editor of this collection and one of the translators. On 16 May Roger will outline the background to the project. Readings of selected poems will follow in both Russian and English. There will be time for questions and discussion, as well as for informal conversation among lovers of Pushkin and those wishing to learn more about him. Copies of the four volumes and of Alma Classics’ other Pushkin titles will also be available for purchase.
The evening will be introduced by David Brummell, a long-standing member of the Pushkin Club. The poems will be read in Russian by Taissia Chinina and in English by Roger Clarke, David Brummell and Lucy Daniels, a former Co-Chair of the Pushkin Club.