La Kapitanfilino : romano

by Alexander S. Pushkin

Other authorsM. Ŝidlovskaja (Translator)

Book, 1927

Status

Available

Call number

891.733

Genres

Publication

Berlino, Rudolf Mosse

Description

Alexander Pushkin's short novel is set during the reign of Catherine the Great, when the Cossacks rose up in rebellion against the Russian empress. Presented as the memoir of Pyotr Grinyov, a nobleman, The Captain's Daughter tells how, as a feckless youth and fledgling officer, Grinyov was sent from St. Petersburg to serve in a remote part of southern Russia. Traveling to take up this new post, Grinyov loses his shirt gambling and then loses his way in a terrible snowstorm, only to be guided to safety by a mysterious peasant. With impulsive gratitude Grinyov hands over his fur coat to his savior, never mind the cold. Arrived at Fort Belogorsk, Grinyov falls in love with Masha, the beautiful young daughter of his captain. Then Pugachev, leader of the Cossack rebellion, surrounds the fort. Resistance, he has made it clear, will be met by death. At once a fairy tale and a thrilling historical novel, this singularly Russian work of the imagination is also a timeless, universal, and very winning story of how love and duty can summon pluck and luck to confront calamity.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member john257hopper

This fairly short novel is one of the better known works of the father of Russian literature. Set in the time of the Pugachev rebellion against Catherine the Great in the 1770s, the central character Petr Andreyevich Grinyev, on being made by his father to join the army, is disappointed to be

posted to a remote fortress instead of to St Petersburg. He has a chance encounter with a traveller who later turns out to be Pugachev. At the fortress, he falls in love with the eponymous daughter Maria Mironova (though in this translation her father's role is routinely translated as commandant, despite the novel's title). As is often the case in 19th century fiction, Maria is really a cipher with no character of her own other than as a loyal daughter and loving would be wife to Petr; indeed, viewed objectively, the title of the novel is not really appropriate. The translation reads a little oddly at times (a general describing his troops as "children" rather than "lads", presumably as a translation of the Russian word "rebyata"). There is also an additional omitted chapter after the end of the narrative, which is an alternative version of the final chapter, described in other sources I have found as a rough draft that Pushkin discarded, but actually almost identical in places, and with a more dramatic conclusion to the story than in the published version. A good and easy read, though, and quite funny in places.

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