Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Impressions of Russian Literature - IV
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was condemned in 1847 to be whipped, and, after the
execution of that sentence, to go as a common soldier to
Orenburg. He was also most strictly forbidden to write.
At first he remained for some time in Orenburg itself,
then in the fortress of Orsk; then he took part in an
expedition to Lake Aral, and at last he was transferred
to fort Nev-Petrovsk on the Asiatic shore of the Caspian
Sea.
While still in Orenburg, he had again followed his
irresistible impulse to write. Thousands of copies of
his poems of freedom and vengeance, which then issued
from his pen, were distributed in the Ukraine, and,
during the time of the revolt in 1848, were printed in
Galicia. A second time he was punished by the lash.
It did not crush him. But in Nev-Petrovsk, whither he
was last taken, and where the garrison was made up of
the most worthless dregs of society, while the duty was
the most arduous that can be imagined, and where
neither a human being in whom the poet could confide,
nor even a book or newspaper, could be found, he
sickened, and slowly grew stupid.
When, after the lapse of seven years (1857), his
admirers in St. Petersburg, especially Countess Alexis
Tolstoï, at last obtained his discharge from the military
service, the commander of the fort was able to support
the petition by the statement, “The man is harmless.”
He went to St. Petersburg, and there wrote, with powers
flaming up anew, a bitterly scornful poem, “The Brothers’
Mission,” against Russian Panslavism, which would free
other people, but cruelly oppress the Slavic races in
Russia, published several works anonymously, and wrote
a short autobiography.
He was cured of the uncritical enthusiasm of his
youth for the Cossack part of the Ukraine.
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