''Two Fates'' (Dve Sudby) is a poem by

Apollon Maykov Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov (, , Moscow – , Saint Petersburg) was a Russian poet, best known for his lyric verse showcasing images of Russian villages, nature, and history. His love for ancient Greece and Rome, which he studied for much of his ...

, first published in

1845 Events January–March * January 1 – The Philippines began reckoning Asian dates by hopping the International Date Line through skipping Tuesday, December 31, 1844. That time zone shift was a reform made by Governor–General Narciso ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, as a separate edition, under the title "Two Fates. A Real Story by A.N.Maykov" and with considerable censorship cuts. It hasn't been re-issued in the author's lifetime and first appeared in its original form in The Selected Works by A.N.Maykov. The poem was written in 1844 and deals with the then popular issue of a "

superfluous man __NOTOC__ The superfluous man (, ''líshniy chelovék'', "extra person") is an 1840s and 1850s Russian literary concept derived from the Byronic hero. It refers to a man, perhaps talented and capable, who does not fit into social norms. In most c ...

" of the 1840s. Scholars usually see it as the author's reaction to

Vissarion Belinsky Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky (; Pre-reform spelling: Виссаріонъ Григорьевичъ Бѣлинскій. – ) was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. Belinsky played one of the key roles in the career of p ...

's ideas and his own interpretation of them. More obvious influence, though, was

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is conside ...

, and the motivation of the protagonist Vladimir's wanderings looked very much like that formulated in the poem '' The Prisoner of the Caucasus'' ("High society reject, a nature's friend / He left his native place..."). Vladimir, who feels as an outcast to the society, is engaged in a feud between

Westernizers Westernizers (; , ) were a group of 19th-century intellectuals who believed that Russia's development depended upon the adoption of Western European technology and liberal government. In their view, Western ideas such as industrialisation needed t ...

and

Slavophiles Slavophilia () was a movement originating from the 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed on the basis of values and institutions derived from Russia's early history. Slavophiles opposed the influences of Western Europe in Rus ...

(for whom "a local cucumber is sweeter than grapevine"), then succumbs to the blows of fate and turns into a typical landowner, a "mindless 'sky-smoker'". For all that, according to the biographer Fyodor Pryima, "Two Fates is in many ways an original work, noted, if not for its artistic maturity, then with daring political verve, containing ideas which were akin to those the Decemberists had as regarding the Russian history." Of the poem's main character, Maykov wrote in a letter to

Pavel Viskovatov Pavel Alexandrovich Viskovatov (, also: Висковатый, Viskovatyi; 6 December 1842 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – 29 April 1905 in Saint Petersburg) was a Russian historian of literature, editor, pedagogue and librettist (his were ...

: "Vladimir is so ambivalent: some of his views are pro-Russian, akin to those expressed by ''

Moskvityanin ''Moskvityanin'' (Москвитянин, "The Muscovite") was a monthly literary review published by Mikhail Pogodin in Moscow between 1841 and 1856., , , , It was the mouthpiece of the Official Nationality theory espoused by Count Sergey Uv ...

'', which I share myself, others smack of Belinsky-inspired Westernizing... He is a Pechorin-type hero, but of the University kind, and full of Belinsky's ideas." Later Maykov changed both his political views and his opinion of the ''Two Fates''. "All of it, except maybe for two or three lyrical fragments, is phony; the play as such is exceptionally bad", he wrote.

Reception

Contemporary critics lauded the poem for its relevance, depth and realistic characters. In his February 1845 review of ''Two Fates'' Belinsky wrote: "This talent that has given us such hopes, develops and progresses. The proof of that is his new poem, richly poetic, fine in its intelligence and multifacetious in terms of motifs and colours."

Alexander Herzen Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the precursor of Russian socialism and one of the main precursors of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudo ...

wrote in his diary on March 17, 1845: "Two Fates, by Maykov. Lots of fine moments. He seemed to touch so many strings that vibrate in our soul so achingly! Reflected in it are our estrangement from Europe with its interests, our apathy back home, etc, etc."

Nikolay Chernyshevsky Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky ( – ) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism and the N ...

wrote in a letter to

Alexander Pypin Alexander Nikolayevich Pypin (; 6 April 1833 – 9 December 1904) was a Russian literary historian, ethnographer, journalist and editor; a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and (briefly, in 1904), its vice-president. Nikolai Chernyshevsky ...

: "What is remarkable in ''Two Fates'' is ts author'spassionate love for our homeland and for science. His speculations as to the reasons for our mental apathy could be as well dismissed but there are wonderful fragments on science in this book."The Complete N.G. Chernyshevsky in 15 volumes. Moscow, 1939-1953. Vol.14, p. 47.

References

External links

The text of Two Fates
{{Apollon Maykov 1845 poems Works by Apollon Maykov