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Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech

Pushkin Monument in Moscow
Location	Moscow
Participants	Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

"Dostoyevsky's Pushkin Speech" was a speech delivered by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in honour of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin on 20 June [O.S. 8 June] 1880 at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow. The speech is considered a crowning achievement of his final years and elevated him to the rank of a prophet while cementing his stature further as the greatest contemporary Russian writer.

The Pushkin Speech, which Dostoyevsky gave less than a year before his death, was delivered at the Strastnaya Square after a two-hour religious service at the monastery across the street. The address praised Pushkin as a beloved poet, a prophet, and the embodiment of Russia's national ideals. There are some who note that the speech was not really about Pushkin but about Russia, and also Dostoyevsky himself.

References

1. Levitt, Marcus C. (1989). Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 124–125. ISBN 978-0801422508.
2. Sekirin, Peter (1997). The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist from Contemporaries' Memoirs and Rare Periodicals, Most Translated Into English for the First Time, with a Detailed Lifetime Chronology and Annotated Bibliography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 238. ISBN 0786402644.
3. Moss, Walter (2002). Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. London: Anthem Press. p. 219. ISBN 9780857287632.
4. ^ Cassedy, Steven (2005). Dostoevsky's Religion. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 80. ISBN 0804751374.

External links

• English translation of the speech

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