In my presentation, I will explore the Russian composers' fascination with Pu&shachek;kin's poetry that spanned two centuries—the nineteenth and the twentieth. I will concentrate mostly on the romances (art songs) set to Pu&shachek;kin's lyric poetry. I am aiming at a cultural historical overview, which will include textual analysis and will explore the Pu&shachek;kinian legend of the nineteenth century and Pu&shachek;kinian mythologies of the twentieth.

In my analysis of the works of the nineteenth-century composers, I will look at the composers of the Golden Age, such as Glinka, &Chachek;ajkovskij, Dargomy&zhachek;skij and the Mighty Handful group. What especially attracted them to Pu&shachek;kin? His lyricism—as in Ne poj, krasavica pri mne, his Protean nature as in V krovi gorit ogon&soft; &zhachek;elan&soft;ja? His historical and prophetic grasp as in the drama Boris Godunov?

The twentieth-century composers such as &Shachek;ostakovi&chachek; and Prokof&soft;ev continued, in a sense, the tradition of the Golden Age by turning, once again, to Pu&shachek;kin. I will demonstrate how, in a sense, their treatment of Pu&shachek;kin was connected with the preceding legacy and with twentieth century Pu&shachek;kinian mythologies of Russian modernism— with the myth of Pu&shachek;kin's centennial return that had inspired the intellectuals long before Pu&shachek;kin's actual anniversary in 1937.

There have been numerous (some sources cite over three thousand) musical works set to Pu&shachek;kin's poetry, including about a hundred operas. Hundreds of Pu&shachek;kin's lyric poems and collected folk songs have received musical renditions. The interest in Pu&shachek;kin as a musical source arose when he was still a youth, studying at the Lyceum. Aleksej Verstovskij was among the first, in 1823, to render Pu&shachek;kin's Black Shawl (Glja&zhachek;u kak bezumnyj na &chachek;ernuju &shachek;al&soft;).

In my analysis of the nineteenth century Pu&shachek;kinian musical phenomenon, I will focus specifically on the Glinka-Pu&shachek;kin connection, which points out the interdependence of literature and music. Glinka was a source of inspiration for Pu&shachek;kin's Ne poj, krasavica, pri mne. At the same time, Glinka was the author of numerous romances set to Pu&shachek;kin's lyric poems and composed Ruslan and Ljudmila, the very first Pu&shachek;kin opera. Pu&shachek;kin was also a connecting link in the Glinka-Dargomy&zhachek;skij-Mighty Handful legacy. Dargomy&zhachek;skij, whose musical productivity owed a great deal to Glinka's encouragement, found Pu&shachek;kin to be the most influential source of inspiration. His opera, The Stone Guest, based on Pu&shachek;kin's eponymous poem, demonstrated a forceful connection between literary and musical works through the prism of Pu&shachek;kin's poetry. Dargomy&zhachek;skij, in turn, influenced The Mighty Handful group, which included Balakirev, Borodin, Kuj, and such musical giants as Rimskij-Korsakov and Mussorgskij. While Kuj was an extremely prolific writer of romances based on Pu&shachek;kin's poetry, Rimskij-Korsakov has been considered Pu&shachek;kin's foremost vocal composer and Mussorgskij's opera Boris Godunov transcends epic and epochal significance. For that particular cluster of the above-named composers, Pu&shachek;kin, thus, was a unifying thread in the music legacy that spanned several decades.

&Chachek;ajkovskij's fascination with Pu&shachek;kin deserves special mention. While he set only two romances to Pu&shachek;kin's poems, he was fascinated by Tat&soft;jana and wrote romances with Tat&soft;jana's character in mind—those were set to the poems of other composers—that served as musical studies for Tat&soft;jana's character in his opera Eugene Onegin. In my analysis of the twentieth century renditions of Pu&shachek;kin's work, I will have to look closer at the relationship between the composer and authority, especially poignant in the case of &Shachek;ostakovi&chachek;, and analyze the role of the Pu&shachek;kin cult in the 1930s. Whether by way of official propaganda that resulted in the official Pu&shachek;kin celebration, or in the mythologies of Pu&shachek;kinian centennial return, Pu&shachek;kin was in the hearts and minds of the intelligentsia of that time. I will explore the tension between the official and unofficial Pu&shachek;kin cults and how that came to be resolved in the works of &Shachek;ostakovi&chachek; and Prokof&soft;ev. My conclusion will aim at a connection between nineteenth- and twentieth-century vocal works based on Pu&shachek;kin's poetry.