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“Dream at Sea”: Tiutchev and Pascal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Richard A. Gregg
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Extract

Sometime in the decade between 1826 and 1836 Tiutchev wrote a poem entitled “Son na more” (“Dream at Sea”). A literal English translation would read as follows:

Both the sea and the storm rocked our skiff; Sleepy, I was abandoned to the full caprice of the waves. The two infinities were within me, And willfully they played with me. Around me, like cymbals, resounded the cliffs. The winds replied, and the waves sang. I flew deafened in a chaos of sounds. But above the chaos of sounds my dream was swiftly borne. Sickly bright, magically mute, It blew lightly over the sounding darkness. In the rays of my fever it unfolded its world: The earth shone green, the ether grew bright, Labyrinthine gardens, palaces, columns, And myriads of silent crowds seethed. I recognized many faces unfamiliar to me. I saw magic creatures, mysterious birds. Across the peaks of creation I strode like a god, And under me the world shone motionless. But through all the dreams, like the wail of a magician, I heard the roar of the ocean's abyss, And into the quiet domain of visions and dreams Burst the foam of the roaring waves.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 1964 , pp. 526 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1964

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References

1 Pierre Morane, Paul Ier de Russie avant Vavenement 1754-1796 (Paris, 1907) and Constantine de Grunwald, La vie et le regne du Nicolas I (Paris, 1946) are among the very few studies which use diplomatic archives for nonpolitical questions. Barbara Jelavich, ed., Russland 1852-1871: Aus den Berichten der bayerischen Gesandtschaft in St. Petersburg (Wiesbaden, 1963) shows both the strength and weakness of diplomatic reports for domestic history.

2 Cobenzl's official correspondence for the period 1790-99 numbers twenty-two cartons. These included the reports written by Dietrichstein, St. Julien, and Viazzoli. The correspondence is in the series, Russland II Berichte, cartons 71-93. In the Austrian archives only the “Berichte” and “Varia” series contained useful information. Cobenzl's role at the Russian court has never been studied systematically.

3 Only the Austrian archives, of those read, contain much material on Paul, and none of the standard biographies of the members of the imperial family use this information. In this sense, the data on Paul comprise new and valuable material. The Prussian, Swedish, and Danish archives should all contain equally valuable information, although the Public Record Office, which also should have done so, proved a disappointment (see below).

4 Two very interesting files of correspondence in the Lieven Papers at the British Museum add substantially to the data concerning the military. These are letters from Count Arakcheev and Pierre Dolgoruky. The latter deal specifically with conditions in the Russian armies during the crucial period, 1804-7. See Lieven Papers, Add. 47243 (Dolgoruky) and Add. 47244 (Arakcheev). These letters have not been available previously.

5 The diplomatic correspondence in the Archives du Ministere des Affaires fitrangeres is in the series “Correspondance politique: Russie,” and the miscellaneous material, including Langeron, is in the “Memoires et documents” series. Mr. John Nicopolous, a doctoral candidate at the University of Paris, is working on the economic development of the Black Sea; Basile Spiridonakis did an interesting doctoral study based on this information: “Les principautes danubiennes de 1774 a 1792: £tude politique et diplomatique” (unpublished, Paris, 1962). Mr. Spiridonakis put together a valuable guide to materials on Russian history in the French foreign office archives which he allowed me to use before it was printed. See his Memoires et documents du Ministere des Affaires £trangeres de France sur la Russie (Quebec: University de Sherbrooke, 1962). Rondo Cameron's excellent France and the Economic Development of Europe (Princeton, 1961) does not touch French activities in southern Russia in the first decade of the nineteenth century.

6 In the Public Record Office, all material for this period pertaining to Russia is filed in the same series, F. O. 65. Thus diplomatic dispatches, consular reports, and all supporting materials may be found in the same place, and all pertinent data may be read at the same time.