Russian Identity Theme Analysis

We still, alas, cannot forestall it—
This dreadful ailment’s heavy toll;
The spleen is what the English call it,
We call it simply Russian soul.
‘Twas this our hero had contracted;
And though, thank God, he never acted
To put a bullet through his head,
His former love of life was dead.

And then he saw that country byways—
With no great palaces, no streets,
No cards, no balls, no poets’ feats—
Were just as dull as city highways;
And spleen, he saw, would dog his life,
Like shadow or a faithful wife.
But I was born for peaceful roaming,
For country calm and lack of strife;
My lyre sings! And in the gloaming
My fertile fancies spring to life.

Another squire chose this season
To reappear at his estate
And gave the neighbours equal reason
For scrutiny no less irate.
Vladimir Lensky, just returning
From Göttingen with soulful yearning,
Was in his prime—a handsome youth
And poet filled with Kantian truth.

I’m writing you this declaration—
What more can I in candour say?
It may be now your inclination
To scorn me and to turn away;
But if my hapless situation
Evokes some pity for my woe,
You won’t abandon me, I know.

Tatyana (with a Russian duty
That held her heart, she knew not why)
Profoundly loved, in its cold beauty,
The Russian winter passing by:
Crisp days when sunlit hoarfrost glimmers,
The sleighs, and rosy snow that shimmers
In sunset’s glow, the murky light
That wraps about the Yuletide night.

Our Lensky’s seat, there lived and thrived
In philosophical seclusion
(And does so still, have no illusion)
Zaretsky—once a rowdy clown,
Chief gambler and arch rake in town,
The tavern tribune and a liar—
But now a kind and simple soul
Who plays an unwed father’s role,
A faithful friend, a peaceful squire,
And man of honour, nothing less:
Thus does our age its sins redress!

‘What can I do? Tatyana’s grown,’
Dame Larin muttered with a moan.
‘Her younger sister married neatly;
It’s time that she were settled too,
I swear I don’t know what to do;
She turns all offers down completely,
Just says: “I can’t”, then broods away,
And wanders through those woods all day.’

But roads are bad now in our nation;
Neglected bridges rot and fall;
Bedbugs and fleas at every station
Won’t let the traveller sleep at all.

But those to whom, as friends and brothers,
My first few stanzas I once read—
‘Some are no more, and distant… others.’
As Sadi long before us said.
Without them my Onegin’s fashioned.
And she from whom I drew, impassioned,
My fair Tatyana’s noblest trait…
Oh, much, too much you’ve stolen, Fate!
But blest is he who rightly gauges
The time to quit the feast and fly,
Who never drained life’s chalice dry,
Nor read its novel’s final pages;
But all at once for good withdrew—
As I from my Onegin do.