Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech

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.[1] 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.[2]

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.[3] The address praised Pushkin as a beloved poet, a prophet, and the embodiment of Russia's national ideals.[4] There are some who note that the speech was not really about Pushkin but about Russia, and also Dostoyevsky himself.[4]

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.
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