When I spoke in one of my previous posts of
the Pugachyov riot, I forgot to mention that its leader was beheaded.
Pugachyov's execution is described by Pushkin in The History of
Pugachyov (1834), but it is also mentioned in the epilogue to The
Captain's Daughter: он
присутствовал при казни Пугачёва, который узнал его в толпе и кивнул ему
головою, которая через минуту, мёртвая и окровавленная, показана была
народу ("he [Grinyov] was present at the
execution of Pugachyov, who recognized him in the crowd and nodded to him a
minute before his lifeless, bleeding head was held up before the
people").
Sending in the beginning of 1836 a copy
of The History of Pugachyov to his friend Denis Davydov, Pushkin
addressed him a little poem beginning Тебе, певцу, тебе,
герою! ("To you, bard, to you, hero!") There are lines in
it:
Вот мой Пугач: при первом
взгляде
Он виден - плут, казак
прямой!
(Here is my Pugach. From the first sight
you can see through him: a rogue, a real
Cossack!*)
Hero of the 1812 war against Napoleon, Denis
Davydov (1784-1839) is mentioned by Chekhov in his letter to Suvorin to
which I tried to draw your attention in my earlier post: У одних, смотря по калибру, цели ближайшие — крепостное
право, освобождение родины, политика, красота или просто водка, как у Дениса
Давыдова ("Depending on the
calibre, some [writers] have immediate goals: [abolition of] serfdom,
liberation of native land, politics, beauty or - like Denis Davydov -
simply vodka").
Interestingly, Cossack, vodka and sharks (remember
акула in my previous post?) are mentioned in one and the same
little paragraph of Ada (3.5):
She [Lucette] drank a 'Cossack pony' of Klass vodka -
hateful, vulgar, but potent stuff; had another; and was hardly able to down a
third because her head had started to swim like hell. Swim like hell from
sharks, Tobakovich!
Denis Davydov = syn Davidov + de = Avidov +
ded + sny
syn Davidov -
Russ., son of David (King Solomon, but also Jesus Christ and Aleksandr
Davidovich Samoylenko, a character in Chekhov's The Duel,
1891)
de - nobility particle
Avidov - Baron Klim
Avidov (anagram of "Vladimir Nabokov"), Marina's former lover who gave her
children a Flavita set and who, accrding to Walter C. Keyway, Esq., dropped the
first letter of his name in order to use it as a particule
(1.36)
ded - Russ.,
grandfather
sny - Russ., dreams
*Pugachyov was a Don Cossack
Alexey Sklyarenko