“Wish me Health, Kalmyk!” (The Issues of the Textual Aspect, the Materials to the Comments: Part I)

Abstract

The article discusses some textual aspects of two reconstructions of the early (draft) editions of A.S. Pushkin’s address to the Literature and Theater Society “Green Lamp” (dated back to the beginning of 1821 and no later than spring of 1822). The reconstructions have been subsequently undertaken by two Pushkin scholars - textual critics, by the editors of the Big and Small academic editions of the poet’s heritage - S.M. Bondi (1931, 1935 - published in 1949) and B.V. Tomashevski (1949 - publication in 4 editions till the end of 1970s). The comparative and contrastive research of the reconstructed texts allows us to reveal certain peculiarities in their compositional structure. The aim of the article is to identify in those structures the position of the formula “Wish me health, Kalmyk!” which is common and prevailing not only for the under consideration draft versions and the reconstructed on their basis texts, but also for the whole complex of texts dating back to the beginning of 1820s. The analysis permits to conclude that the given poetic formula is not one-verse but double-verse with the address ‘Pour me the wine of comet’ (the author of the article supports B.V. Tomashevski’s interpretation of this line) and the well-known facetious imperative ‘Wish me health, Kalmyk!’ (written with the capital letter as stated by S.M. Bondi it is found twice in the draft versions of the early edition of the address). The conclusion drawn can be directly implemented in editing practice. The given paper presents some historical and literary commentaries to the rhyme ‘language - Kalmyk’ inherited from the poet of the older generation I.I. Dmitriev (in the ode ‘Patriot’s Voice at Seizure of Warsaw’ - 1794) which was reconsidered by Pushkin repeatedly. So, the article considers some issues of Pushkin’s texts and provides some commentaries to the reconstructed Pushkin’s texts of the early edition of the address to ‘Green Lamp’.