Текст книги "И время и место: Историко-филологический сборник к шестидесятилетию Александра Львовича Осповата"

В свете этой антитезы понятно, почему вторым объектом пародии в «четвертой выдержке» Толстой сделал свою балладу «Алеша Попович». Объяснение в обоих случаях происходит в лодке. Герои пародии плывут по речке, «окаймленной густыми тростниками»; далее говорится о «лодке, задержанной стеблями водяных лилий» (367,368) – ср.: «Кто веслом так ловко правит / Через аир и купырь?» (194). Русалочья тема пародии, заявленная строками «Рыбака» Гете (возникли они потому, что отраженные в реке облака и берега казались «каким-то подводным миром, в который уходила вся душа Перекопина») и в сниженном ключе развитая далее (Бронская соблазняет Перекопина, ее любовь ведет к смерти)²⁵, в балладе предстает трансформированной: даром певца-соблазнителя наделен герой, страшится похищенная царевна. Мужу Вронской («старому воину»), которого она готова бросить, но не хочет обманывать (дуэли с которым пугается Перекопин), соответствует жених, по которому поначалу тоскует царевна и до которого нет дела Алеше. В отброшенном фрагменте царевна «смешивает» своего похитчика с «беспутными поповичами», но богатырь – в отличие от них и своего пародийного двойника Перекопина – вправе сказать: «Я ж боец и песнопевец! / Я лягушек не ловлю! / Я лишь именем Попович, / Я и верю и люблю» (515). Ловля и потрошение лягушек контрастирует с охотой «знаменитого птицелова» («без силков и без приманок»), чья волшебная песня творит взаимную и свободную («Ты взошла своею волей» [195]) любовь богатыря и то ли всех услышавших его пение девиц, то ли наконец-то обретенной суженой, ради которой былинный дон жуан оставит прежние забавы²⁶.

Пародийный извод баллады так же необходим Толстому, как и «тенденциозные» строфы, снятые, но прежде – написанные. Антимир Толстого (абсурдная современность) сложен из тех же элементов, что и творимый им утопический мир. «Разлад» свидетельствует и о высокой ценности «лада», и о его поэтической природе. Помещая в конце письма Маркевичу стихотворение «На тяге» (с автокомментарием: «Не знаю, хорошо ли это, но это правдиво»), Толстой противополагает его предъявленной ранее ложной словесности (и стоящей за ней ложной жизни) и напоминает об истинной гармонии. Однако прекрасный мир природы счастьем поэта не одаривает. Ответом на «ликующую ноту» журавлей и «жемчужную дробь» соловья становятся не «весенние чувства» (ср. «Сватовство», где майский гомон птиц заглушает обращенные к счастливым женихам речи счастливых невест), но элегический вздох: «Былые радости! Забытые печали! / Зачем в душе моей вы снова прозвучали / И снова предо мной, средь явственного сна, / Мелькнула дней моих погибшая весна?» (т)²⁷. Нежданно обнаружившаяся грусть преодолевается форсированными «красивостями» (с легким привкусом игровой эротики) французского прощания: «На этом, Болеслав, целую Вас в обе щеки, напоминающие мне две розы под сенью листвы серебристого тополя» (368).

В письме Маркевичу Толстой построил игровую модель если не всего своего мира, то его синхронного письму фрагмента. Он показал, как крепко сцеплены «игровые» (вплоть до непечатных) и «серьезные», иронические и патетические, исторические и современные, лирические и эпические составляющие единой поэтической системы. Связь эта, без сомнения, учитывалась Толстым не только в эпистолярном метатексте, но и при работе над опусами, которые потом могли функционировать независимо друг от друга. Наиболее выразительный пример – опубликованные раздельно «Порой веселой мая…» (Русский вестник. 1871. № 10) и «Сватовство» (Русский вестник. 1871. № 9; первоначально баллада была направлена в «Вестник Европы», отказ Стасюлевича вынудил Толстого передать ее в журнал Каткова). Здесь было бы целесообразно проанализировать этот освещающий с разных сторон «весенние чувства» диптих, но для того (слегка перефразируем излюбленный оборот А.Л. Осповата) нет ни времени, ни места.

Примечания

¹ Датировка текстов, о которых пойдет речь, была предложена И.Г. Ямпольским в первом издании Большой серии «Библиотеки поэта (Толстой А.К. Полн. собр. стихотворений. Л., 1937) и не корректировалась ни Е.И. Прохоровым, подготовившим второе издание (Толстой А.К. Полн. собр. стихотворений: В 2 т. Л., 1984. Т. 1), ни самим И.Г. Ямпольским (Толстой А.К. Собр. соч.: В 4 т. М., 1963. Т. 1; Толстой А.К. Полн. собр. стихотворений и поэм. СПб., 2004). В статье стихи цитируются по: Толстой А.К. Полн. собр. стихотворений: В 2 т. T. 1; письма (кроме оговоренных случаев) по: Толстой А.К. Собр. соч.: В 4 т. М., 1964. Т. 4; страницы указываются в скобках.

² «Ода…» обоснованно отождествляется с опусом, упомянутым в письме М.М. Стасюлевичу от 3 июля: «Есть у меня „Баллада для немногих". Я прислал бы ее Вам, но она уж очень игрива, вроде „Бунта в Ватикане"»(369–370).

³ М.М. Стасюлевич и его современники в их переписке. СПб., 1912. Т. 2. С. 354.

⁴ Ямпольский И.Г. Неопубликованные письма А.К. Толстого // Памятники культуры <…>. Ежегодник 1979. Л., 1980. С. 108.

⁵ Гоголь Н.В. Полн. собр. соч. и писем: В 23 т. М., 2003. Т. 4. С. 20.

⁶ Там же. С. 13–14. Гоголевские подтексты (тот же «Ревизор» и особенно «Нос») ощутимы в «Оде на поимку Таирова».

⁷ В названии игрового, агрессивно эротизированного текста («И вспрыгнуть щепка каждая / На щепку норовит <…>. Пошли быки с коровами / В зеленый луг гулять <…>. Готов я бессознательно / Сам сделаться быком» [318–319]) спрятано имя одного из самых просветленных и «воздушных» стихотворений Жуковского («Весеннее чувство»), а в размере (трехстопный ямб с чередованием дактилических и женских рифм) парадоксально присутствуют три присущие ему семантические окраски – собственно комическая и (в обращенном виде) патетическая и лирическая. О семантических ореолах этого метра см.: Гаспаров М.Л. Метр и смысл: Об одном из механизмов культурной памяти. М., 1999. С. 97–102. Гаспаров полагает, что Толстой в «Весенних чувствах…» пародирует Фета («Уж верба вся пушистая…»); кажется, и генезис, и семантика текста не столь однозначны.

⁸ Отмечено И.Г. Ямпольским: Толстой А.К. Собр. соч.: В 4 т. Т. 4. С. 369.

⁹ Достоевский Ф.М. Полн. собр. соч.: В 30 т. Л., 1974. С. 166, 29. Ср. примеч. И.Г. Ямпольского в кн.: Толстой А.К. О литературе и искусстве. М., 1986. С. 302.

¹⁰ Прутков Козьма. Полн. собр. соч. Л., 1949. С. 84, 86.

¹¹ Не пытаясь решить сложный вопрос о датировке текстов, связанных с поручиком Прутковым, заметим, что завершены они быть могли не ранее апреля 1870 года: Крестовский выступил в «Голосе» 27 марта, Буренин ответил в «Санкт-Петербургских ведомостях» 28 марта. Естественно, что Толстой с его обостренным рыцарским чувством чести помнил эту позорную историю и год спустя. Весьма вероятно, что помнил он и более давний сюжет: 28 апреля 1862 года Е.Н. Гарднер, десятью днями раньше ставший мужем кузины и возлюбленной Д.И. Писарева, получив оскорбительное письмо Писарева, пришел в его квартиру и ударил обидчика хлыстом. Писарев тщетно пытался добиться дуэли и 3 мая на Царскосельском вокзале нанес такой же удар Гарднеру. Ср. в пародии: «Желтухин! – сказал он ему, – я прощаю вам вашу горячность, ибо я слишком развит, чтобы обращать внимание на оплеуху, но будьте уверены, что если застану вас врасплох, то отхлестаю вам морду сыромятным ремнем» (365).

¹² Отмечено И.Г. Ямпольским.

¹³ Ср. также в «Церемониале…»: «На краю разверстой могилы / Имеют спорить нигилисты и славянофилы. // Первые утверждают, что, кто умрет, / Тот весь обращается в кислород» (387).

¹⁴ Тютчев Ф.И. Полн. собр. стихотворений. Л., 1987. С. 157, 164.

¹⁵ Не располагая данными о знакомстве Толстого со «Спиритическим предсказанием» Тютчева (в отличие от «Рассвета» и «Тогда лишь в полном торжестве…» не печатавшегося при жизни поэтов), заметим все же, что для автора «Потока-богатыря» Москва уже неприемлема и в качестве, говоря словами Тютчева, «новейшей» из трех столиц России (Там же. С. 187). Геополитический аппетит Толстого умереннее явленного Тютчевым в «Русской географии». Он не претендует на «град Петров», отождествляемый с Римом (Там же. С. 152). Но и тютчевская двусмыслица (позволяющая предположить, что поэт назвал официальную столицу империи) для него невозможна.

¹⁶ Жинкин Н.П. А.К. Толстой и Г. Гейне // Сборник статей к 40-летию ученой деятельности академика А.С. Орлова. Л., 1934. С. 435.

¹⁷ Гейне Г. Избр. произв.: В 2 т. М., 1956. Т. 2. С. 439–440. Гейне именует коммунистов «мрачными иконоборцами», что должно было привлечь внимание Толстого, вне зависимости от того, познакомился он с предисловием к «Лютеции» до написания «Иоанна Дамаскина» (1859) и «Против течения» (1867) или позднее (что менее вероятно). В любом случае, обыгрывая и оспаривая иронические пассажи Гейне в 1871 году, Толстой актуализировал для памятливых читателей свои апологии художества.

¹⁸ Ср. в пародии на «Бесов» детей Насти, восторженно демонстрирующих «взрослость» («мы все понимаем» [366]).

¹⁹ Чернышевский Н.Г. Что делать? Из рассказов о новых людях. Л., 1975. С. 123–124.

²⁰ Там же. С. 206.

²¹ Ср. эпиграмматический отклик Майкова (1888) на поэму уже давно почившего Толстого «Иоанн Дамаскин»: «Свел житие он на что? На протест за „свободное слово" / Против цензуры, и вышел памфлет вместо чудной легенды. / Все оттого, что лица говорящего он не видал пред собою» (Майков А.Н. Соч.: В 2 т. М., 1984. Т. 2. С. 353). Майков, вероятно, не знал, что наслышавшийся сходных укоризн Толстой в письме Маркевичу от 4 февраля 1859 года утверждал: «Пусть они откроют Четьи-Минеи – они увидят, что все было точно так, как я описал» (107).

В связи с запретом «Царя Федора Иоанновича» Толстой писал ему же 13 декабря 1868 года: «В произведении литературы я презираю всякую тенденцию <…>. Не моя вина, если из того, что я писал ради любви к искусству, явствует, что деспотизм никуда не годится» (246).

²² «Ах, кстати, что это за сказка о Лорелее? Ведь это ее скала виднеется? Говорят, она прежде всех топила, а как полюбила, сама бросилась в воду» (Тургенев И. С. Собр. соч.: В 12 т. М., 1955. Т. 6. С. 251).

²³ Там же. Т. 3. С. 92–94, 82, 84–86,104.

²⁴ Ср. в письме Рудина Наталье: «Мне природа дала много – я это знаю и из ложного стыда не стану скромничать перед вами <…> но я умру, не сделав ничего достойного сил моих, не оставив за собою никакого благотворного следа <…>. Я остаюсь одинок на земле для того, чтобы предаться, как вы сказали мне сегодня поутру с жестокой усмешкой, другим, более свойственным мне занятиям <…>. Если б я по крайней мере принес мою любовь в жертву моему будущему делу, моему призванию; но я просто испугался ответственности, которая на меня падала…» (Там же. С. 107, 108).

²⁵ В концовке возникает еще один отзвук русалочьей темы. Простившись, Перекопин «выпрыгнул из лодки и, по колено в зеленой тине, быстро зашагал к усадьбе». Герой не утонул (не погиб от любви), но замарался. «Зеленая тина» ассоциируется с лягушками, которых потрошат нынешние поповичи и прочие нигилисты.

²⁶ Толстой не принял обвинений в безнравственности, которые через Маркевича предъявил балладе Катков. Отстаивая автономию искусства (которое не может и не должно быть «учебником жизни»), поэт, однако, взял под защиту богатыря-певца в письме Маркевичу от 9 октября 1871 года: «Впрочем, с уверенностью могу Вам сказать, что, по сведениям, которые я собирал насчет описываемого происшествия, Попович и девица, проплыв 25 минут на лодке, сошли на берег в деревне по названию Папусевка, Авсеевы лозы тож, где их повенчал добрый священник отец Герасим Помдамурский, в чем ему содействовал благочинный Сократ Борисович Гермафродитов, случайно находившийся там» (379–380).

²⁷ Стихотворение «То было раннею весной…» тоже посвящено прошлому, «утру наших лет», когда поэт был счастлив, а не вспоминал о счастье.

Emily Klenin
A Most Russian Russian in a Nascent Estonia
Fet and Kreutzwald

Afanasij Fet’s memoirs lovingly memorialize the non-occurrence of events of no obvious significance, non-episodes that are punctuated with narrative codas about people readers have never heard of. So, for example, “in the course of my three-year stay [at boarding-school, 1835-37]… there was not a single fatality among the 70 pupils. And even illnesses were very rare. Not only was the word ‘doctor’ not mentioned at the school, there was not even a place called an infirmary” [Fet 1893: 98]. The text goes on to introduce “one of the most learned of the institution’s teachers, Eisenschmidt,” who did get ill and (presumably for lack of a place called an infirmary) suffered his illness in his room, where he was ministered to overnight by the pupils. Keeping the patient’s pipe lit for the duration while taking a chance to smoke it themselves, the boys turned his room into a veritable smokehouse. And there the chapter ends.

It was perhaps reasonable for Fet to mention that pupils did not often die at his school, since deaths of young people were proportionately commoner then, while preceding text stresses the physical rigors of school discipline. And if the learned teacher Eisenschmidt came to Fet’s mind only in this medical connection, then this would be the passage where we would most naturally make his acquaintance. And yet readers can be forgiven for seeing the passage as evidence of the ageing poet’s garrulousness. Do we really need to know this? What purpose can be served by Fet’s saying that while at school he never so much as heard the word ‘doctor’? Of all the words Fet never heard at school, why does this one bubble up?

Fet’s school was located in what is today an Estonian town of some 14,500 inhabitants. The town is called Vôru in Estonian (and in the local language – Vôro) but was known to both Russians and Germans in Fet’s day by its German name Werro (Russian Beppo).¹ In English both names are still used. The town is not one of the region’s oldest centers, or one with an especially rich cultural tradition. It was founded in 1784, by order of Catherine II,² for the purpose of creating a population center linking Baltic Dorpat (Tartu), about 70 km away, with Russian Pskov, from which Werro lies some 80 km distant.³

The general area, wasted and then acquired by Peter I in his Great Northern War, was still relatively under-populated in the latter eighteenth century, and the foundation of the town was an early initiative among the many intended by Catherine and her successors to improve the administration of the region and, eventually, to russify it (a project of which Catherine herself was, at least in the short term, unhopeful).⁴ Werro registered 242 inhabitants in 1787 and by 1825 had nearly tripled in size: its population of 708 represented a gain of about 12 people a year.⁵ From 1825 to 1849, the rate of growth rose to about 32 people a year, more than doubling the 1825 population, to 1481. As the population grew, its ethnic composition also changed: over three quarters of the founding population was ethnically German, and Estonians (who were then generally serfs) constituted under 10 %. According to a count made in 1817 (in the midst of the 1816-19 process of manumitting serfs, first in Estland and then in Livland), the proportion of Estonians in Werro had increased to 17.5 % and the proportion of Germans had fallen to about two thirds. This ethnic shift persisted across the nineteenth century.⁶ Fet’s three-year stay in Werro thus took place during a time of burgeoning growth, albeit on a modest provincial scale. This growth and the accompanying change in ethnicity entailed changes in culture and social class, and sometimes, as will appear below, conflicting perspectives on issues of local importance. The demographic picture also suggests that the town stood in need of increasing social services – schools such as the one Fet attended and medical services such as those the word for which Fet says he never heard.

When Fet was brought to Werro as a teenager, he happened upon a kind of serendipitous Golden Age in local education. The head of his school, Heinrich Krümmer (i796-1873), had come to the Russian Baltic region in 1825 for the purpose of establishing a boys’ school there, but he originally intended to carry out his plan in Dorpat.⁷ For various reasons, including not only the demographics of Werro but also the government’s new suspicions about Krümmer’s foreign religious sponsorship,⁸ the government decided not to allow him to work in Dorpat, but did permit him to open a new school in Werro, which stood in need of one. The Werro school was finally established in 1832. Although not the first German-language school for boys in the town, Krümmer’s school immediately became the best, and for about a decade it was a virtual machine for preparing boys from the Baltic German upper classes to enter the university at Dorpat and then embark on successful careers, often in the service of the Russian government. Once Werro had got a reputation as a strong educational center, other schools also competed, and in 1840 there were 29 schoolteachers (of whom six were women) working at seven schools in Werro. Between 1830 and 1840, the number of schools more than doubled, while the number of pupils rose from 48 to 245. While the growth in schooling to some extent corresponds simply to population growth, it was also specific to the cultural context in Werro. When that context changed, Krümmer’s school declined, and its founder retired from it in 1849; the number of pupils in Werro schools was smaller in 1850 than it had been a decade before. According to H. Eisenschmidt [Eisenschmidt: 74–78], the decline was precipitated by russifying government policies, demanding Russian language preparation at a higher level than corresponded to the availability of good teachers, but a number of other factors also contributed.⁹ The growth of the town meant that demand for land and services rose, and with them – prices. Locals blamed Krümmer for bringing in “outsiders,” while Krümmer himself, in an effort to cope financially, tried various undertakings to bring in more money, but they all took time and energy, and they all failed [Eisenschmidt: 74–78]. He found himself at odds with the local powers and even with some of his own senior teaching staff, and by 1847 Krümmer, in unpublished correspondence (Herrnhut Archive R19 G aa 24 a 15), talks about Werro as a kind of hell populated by a narrow-minded and short-sighted citizenry.

In spite of these petty and ultimately exhausting conflicts, Krümmer’s legacy shows him to have been at least somewhat adaptable to his situation as a German pedagogue in the Russian Baltic provinces: in 1830,before he succeeded in founding his school, he published a German-language arithmetic textbook, afterwards revised and often reprinted, providing exemplification suited to the needs of local pupils, including Estonian ones who happened to be attending German-language schools.¹⁰ Moreover, one part of his own school in Werro – a part unmentioned by Fet – was, although German in language of instruction, an elementary school that taught Estonian pupils. By means of both the textbook and his education of Estonian children, Krümmer was participating in the enterprise that had drawn him to the region in the first place: the work of German Moravian missionary-educators in the Russian Baltic provinces, where they had been influential since the eighteenth century but where they were unwelcome after the death of Alexander I. Krümmer seems to have separated his program from any explicit missionary goal (there was at least one other local Moravian school, more pious and academically less successful), but to have retained his sense of himself as an educator bringing enlightenment to both a ruling class in need of moral discipline and a population only recently freed from serfdom. Krümmer thus was a late representative of the tradition of Estophilic Germans, notably pastors, active in the region for generations. When the school began to lose its ability to attract wealthy German families, this was of course not only a problem for the school itself but also an intellectual loss for the town and a grave disappointment to Krümmer; nonetheless, the change can be viewed not only as deterioration (which it was) but also as a kind of assimilation to local needs and part of a shift away from German cultural dependency to a new situation that engendered a more dynamic, if not invariably more pleasing, set of social relationships.

Krümmer’s work in Werro took place, in fact, at the very dawn of the Estonian national awakening, in which Werro played an important role as home to one of its earliest and most deeply respected exponents: Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803-82). The role of the town as a cradle of Estonian nationalism was anomalous in several ways. First of all, its history as a Russian foundation with an originally German population seems unpromising in this connection. Second, Krümmer’s dislike of Werro was at least matched by Kreutzwald’s; he hated the place so much that he even considered moving to the Russian heartland, which he also had no great love for, just to escape [Puhvel: 61]. He decided to stay put, however, and it was in hidebound (albeit increasingly Estonian) little Werro that fame eventually caught up with him.

When Fet was a schoolboy in Werro, Kreutzwald’s fame was still decades away, so if Fet had said he never heard of Kreutzwald’s Estonian literary production, he would only have been referring to an obvious reality. Even Kreutzwald’s early literary production in German scarcely overlapped with Fet’s presence in the town, nor is there any reason to assume that Fet would have read the provincial German-language weekly in which Kreutzwald’s early work appeared.¹¹ No, when Fet was a schoolboy, Kreutzwald was known in Werro not as a man of letters or intellectual, but rather as the town doctor, the man whose profession Fet never heard mentioned even when Eisenschmidt took ill.¹²

Kreutzwald was in Werro only because he was a doctor. He had been born in serfdom not locally but in the north, in Estland, near Rakvere. When he showed ability at his first school he got the extraordinary chance to go on to higher education (it was at a German-language school that he acquired his German name). He qualified as an elementary-level teacher, worked as a private tutor in St. Petersburg in 1824-25 and then returned, no longer to Estland but to Dorpat, where he went through the university course to qualify as a doctor – but only with a third-class degree, which did not qualify him for an urban practice [Puhvel: 60]. He could qualify only for a place like Werro, to work among small-town artisans and peasants in outlying areas, in effect, that is, as a doctor to Estonians of origins similar to his own. Doctors educated at the state’s expense, moreover, basically went where the state found positions for them. After brief prior acquaintance with the town, Kreutzwald in 1833 became the first town doctor appointed in Werro, and he lived there for the next forty-four years. Like Krümmer, he was an outsider, distanced from his birthplace by happenstance and his own ambitions. Like Krümmer, Kreutzwald would rather have been in Dorpat, and, like Krümmer, he instead settled in Werro because that is where the government permitted him to earn his living.

The two men knew each other and worked together. Kreutzwald’s biographer states that he fulfilled the role of school doctor at Krümmer’s school [Nirk: 41], and in 1838 pupils at Krümmer’s school put on a German-language performance of a play to which Kreutzwald had written a prologue – the first known theatrical production put on by residents of Werro [Pullat: 49]. In later years, Kreutzwald looks back on the years when Krümmer was active as the best era in the life of the town.¹³

As for Eisenschmidt, the pathetically ill teacher whose room was smoked up by his pupils, Fet has nothing else to say about him. In reality, Heinrich Eisenschmidt (1810-64) was Fet’s teacher of German literature, a fact one might have thought the poet would consider worth mentioning, especially since Fet made his 1840 debut with a book that gave prominent place to Fet’s translations of poetry by Schiller and Goethe: these were the great classics especially emphasized in Eisenschmidt’s classes, and the teacher considered himself something of an authority on them. Eisenschmidt arrived at the school the same year as Fet and stayed until 1844. He went on to become director of a prestigious school for girls in Pàrnu (1844-53) and then (1853-57) of the Tartu Seminar for Elementary School Teachers [Laul: 555]. In 1860 Eisenschmidt published a memoir about his years at the Werro school, and in the memoir he recalls Fet as a schoolboy [Eisenschmidt: 47–48]. The recollection is friendly but it probably annoyed Fet, who avoided revelations about his past, and presented his background idiosyncratically. Eisenschmidt also discusses his own illnesses, since he blames them for his suddenly resigning his teaching post in Werro. He even provides such details as the medical advice he got from his “worthy friend, Dr. Kreutzwald” [Eisenschmidt: 78]. Eisenschmidt does not refer to Kreutzwald’s literary activities, which he would probably have been aware of by the time he was writing the memoir, but which he would almost surely not have known or at least thought much about during his decade in Werro, when he was personally acquainted with Kreutzwald. In fact, if there is a hidden theme to Eisenschmidt’s memoir it is his own unawareness of what was going on around him: he states that he had no idea that Fet, for example, was already writing poetry, even though he felt he knew the boy rather well, and the same is true for his recollection of another pupil, J. von Sivers (1823-79),¹⁴ who later published poetry in German. He also claims to have known surprisingly little about Krümmer and some of the other teachers and dissociates himself from their Moravian connections, which another witness says everyone there was fully cognizant of [Maydell: 2]. The source of Eisenschmidt’s naïveté may have been his youth and inexperience: he was only 25 when he arrived at Werro, and it was his first job and experience of life in the region. Yet since Eisenschmidt, who by the time he left the school was one of its most experienced senior teachers, did depart suddenly during a period of crisis, his emphasis on his illness has a self-justificatory ring, especially since he went immediately to a better job with far better prospects for advancement through official channels. Eisenschmidt and Fet not only talk about each other in their memoirs of the Krümmer school, but also naturally refer, from different perspectives, to a number of the same realia: sketches of personalities and routines that both encountered at the school, as well as such specific details as celebration of the headmaster’s birthday and long walks to Munamàgi and other destinations in the area. The coincidence of subject matter is natural, but it is also quite possible that Fet’s recollections about the school respond directly to Eisenschmidt’s. Such a direct connection might help explain the reference to Fet not having encountered any sign of a doctor at the school, even when someone fell ill – specifically, Eisenschmidt, who clearly could have benefited from medical assistance. Just as Eisenschmidt uses the reference to evoke the by-then respected Dr. Kreutzwald, Fet implicitly disparages the reference, while making Eisenschmidt himself a figure of fun.

But is it likely that Fet really never did hear the word ‘doctor’? There seems to exist no documentation of Kreutzwald’s activities at Krümmer’s school at exactly the time Fet was there, but there is ample evidence that Kreutzwald was then the doctor for both the town and the school, that teachers called on his services in that capacity, and that Eisenschmidt, who arrived at the school the same year Fet did, afterward claimed a close enough relationship with Kreutzwald to trust his medical advice and refer to him as a friend. Fet also recalls Eisenschmidt’s being ill, and he himself even as a relatively young man was often ill and often complains of his illnesses. In his three years at school, did he really never hear of Kreutzwald’s existence? And if he did not, why bother to mention that he never heard the word ‘doctor,’ when, by the time he wrote his memoirs, he really could not have avoided knowing who the doctor was, and could perfectly well have said, if the subject of doctors interested him, that he never encountered Kreutzwald, although he might have? Fet may have had his reasons for making Eisenschmidt an object of fun. But Kreutzwald he erases.

Fet retained some ties with the Baltic region and Baltic Germans in later years. For example, when serving as an army officer in the 1840s and 50s, he enjoyed the company of other officers who, like him, were German by background, and among these was a former classmate, Peter von Maydell, with whom he afterwards remained in touch and speaks of warmly. During the Crimean War Fet was posted near Reval (Tallinn), and he speaks with enthusiasm of the efficiency and attractiveness of the way of life he found there [Fet 1890:50–51]. He also has warm reminiscences of his renewed acquaintance with Dorpat in those years. Fet’s connections with the Baltic Germans were cultural and also linguistic: besides having lived in the region and gone to school with Baltic Germans, he was completely bilingual between Russian and German, his pre-university schooling was German in language and cultural orientation, and he aspired to the aristocratic class to which his Baltic German associates for the most part belonged. At the same time, in his memoirs, Fet always insists on his own Russianness, clearly differentiating “their” way of life in the Baltic provinces from, for example, “our Black Sea population” – even though the comparison works, in Fet’s own opinion, to the great advantage of the Baltic way of life. The result is to cast Fet as superior to “our” degraded “Black Sea population” in “Rus” (as he calls it), while at the same time distancing him from the attractive, but alien, Baltic culture, in relation to which he stands as an equal.