Poetry
Catherine
Светлана
Vasily Zhukovsky · 1813
Synopsis
On the eve of Epiphany, young girls tell fortunes to learn who their betrothed will be; one throws her shoe over the gate. Svetlana stays apart: her betrothed has gone to war, and for a year she has had no news. At midnight, alone before a mirror and a candle, she questions the future. The betrothed appears and urges her to follow him: a sleigh is waiting at the gate, the horses are restless, the priest is already at the church. She climbs in beside him.
Context
Begun in 1808 and finished in 1812, the ballad appeared in 1813 in the first two issues of the Messenger of Europe. It was a wedding present for Alexandra Protasova, the poet's niece and pupil, who was marrying Voeikov. In 1808, Zhukovsky had drawn a first poem, Lyudmila, from Bürger's ballad Lenore; in 1831 he would give a faithful translation of it. In between, he transposed the German motif of the bridegroom returning to fetch his betrothed into the divination rites of the Russian winter.
Who it is for
A ballad in short, singing stanzas, to be read aloud; the gestures of the young girls who tell fortunes call for a short note.
Prizes and reception
It spread the first name Svetlana in Russia; Pushkin recalls it in Eugene Onegin, and Nabokov regarded it as a masterpiece.
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