User:Gnosandes/Eugene Onegin


 * Karl Marx, 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
 * Friedrich Engels, 1890 Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom

Political economy
Interest in political economy was a striking feature of the public mood of young people in Russia in 1818‒1820.

Брани́л Гоме́ра, Феокри́та; Зато́ чита́л Ада́ма Сми́та... He cursed Theocritus and Homer, In Adam Smith was his diploma... VII.5‒6

In Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, Homer and Theocritus were translated by poets of democratic orientation, such as Alexei Merzlyakov or Nikolai Gnedich. Whereas in the circles of the Union of Prosperity, with whom Alexander Pushkin was familiar, the fascination with ancient poetry caused an ironic attitude. This nuance was reflected in the characterization of Onegin’s views.

Onegin, following Adam Smith, saw the way to increase the profitability of the economy in increasing its productivity. On the contrary, Onegin’s father preferred to follow the traditional path for a Russian landowner: the ruin of peasants as a result of increased duties and the subsequent mortgage of the estate to the bank.

The question of physiocracy
Когда́ просто́й проду́кт имее́т. Of simple product supplements it. VII.12

According to Sviatkovsky, “simple product” is a translation of one of the basic concepts of the economic theory of the physiocrats, the product of agriculture, which, in their opinion, constitutes the basis of national wealth. However, neither Marx and Engels has a hint of the possibility of interpreting Pushkin’s lines in a physiocratic sense. In the work Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom (1890), Engels translated this passage as “Überfluß an Produkten”. Later, against the “physiocratic” interpretation of the term “simple product”, a variant preserved in Pushkin’s drafts was found: “when credit has.”

Comments by Friedrich Engels
In the article Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom (1890) Engels examines the Russian foreign policy of the 18th and 19th centuries with a conclusion about the gradual development of the revolutionary situation in Russia. Considering the events preceding the French invasion of Russia (1812), Engels says that the price of a short-term alliance with Napoleon for Russia was joining the continental blockade and severing economic ties with England.

“This was the time when Eugene Onegin (in Pushkin’s epic) learnt from Adam Smith how a nation grows wealthy, and how it has no need of money so long as it possesses plenty of the produce of labour. Как госуда́рство богате́ет, И чем живёт, и почему́ Не ну́жно зо́лота ему́, Когда́ просто́й проду́кт име́ет. A nation’s wealth is, what augments it, And how a country lives, and why  It needs no gold if a supply  Of simple product supplements it.  VII.9‒12 While, on the other hand, his father could not see it, and had to mortgage one estate after another. Оте́ц поня́ть его́ не мо́г И зе́мли отда́вал в зало́г. His father failed to understand And took a mortgage on his land.  VII.13‒14

Russia could only get money by maritime commerce, and by the export of her national products to England, then the chief market; and Russia was now far too much occidentalised to do without money. The commercial blockade became unbearable. Political Economy proved more powerful than Diplomacy and the Tsar put together; intercourse with England was quietly resumed, the terms of the Tilsit Treaty were broken, and the war broke out in 1812.”

Friedrich Engels used stanza VII to illustrate his historical-materialistic understanding of the causes of the French invasion of Russia. Alexander Pushkin indirectly helps Engels to explain the causes of wars from the scientific standpoint of historical materialism.