Article

Name: “The Queen of Spades”: Zones of Silence and the Ghost of a Historical Novel

Authors: Eleonora I. Khudoshina

Independent Researcher Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract:

“The Queen of Spades” by Pushkin is considered in the article as two stories in one: the first is an exemplary, in the spirit of Hoffmann, fantastic story, very convincing from the point of view of the “poetics of expressiveness” and completely independent; the second is “analytical”, which contains the possibility of explaining a fantastic plot and, consequently, its “cancellation”.

This “cancellation” itself has already been made by the author in another article, and this one is devoted to its consequences: filling in various kinds of omissions and omissions, the main one of which is the Paris episode. After the cancellation of the fantastic plot, it comes to the fore and poses many new mysteries to the reader. This story is structured as an analytical riddle with pre-given, incompatible answers to the question of what the secret of the three cards is (a chance, a fairy tale, powder cards, a joke). Since this secret is revealed three times in The Queen of Spades, it is possible to prove that all these answers are correct in relation to certain episodes of this story.

The “cancellation” of the fantastic plot transforms both the events and the characters of this story. The heroine of the Paris episode turns out to be not a frivolous beauty who came to Paris to waste her life and her husband’s millions, but Catherine’s maid of honor and confidant.

It was in this role that she was briefly acquainted with the Count of Saint-Germain, who helped her out with money by inventing the secret of three cards for her husband. The story of Chaplitsky, who lost a huge sum, “I remember, to Zorich,” that is, to Catherine’s favorite, also appears in a different light.

Consideration of the historical context to which the formula “sixty years ago” refers allows us to see the Paris episode of “The Queen of Spades” as one of the fragments of a possible historical novel, a kind of double of “The Captain’s Daughter,” written by Pushkin three years later. The action of this unwritten novel could take place against the backdrop of the Russian-Turkish war, Polish events, intrigues of European governments, the Pugachev rebellion – the whole complex of political circumstances in the life of Europe and Russia “sixty years ago.”

Keywords: “The Queen of Spades” by Pushkin, fantastic story, analytical riddle, “The Bronze Horse-man”, “The History of the Pugachev Rebellion”, historical novel, characters of “The Queen of Spades”, N. P. Golitsyna, Count of Saint-Germain

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