The Tales of Belkin was published in 1831 — Pushkin’s first significant work of prose fiction. The five stories are presented as the posthumous papers of the fictional Ivan Petrovich Belkin, a deceased landowner of no literary pretension, who collected them from various acquaintances. This frame device allows Pushkin to experiment with prose storytelling from behind a mask of artless simplicity.
The five tales — “The Shot,” “The Blizzard,” “The Undertaker,” “The Stationmaster,” and “The Squire’s Daughter” — each take a familiar literary scenario (the romantic duel, the elopement prevented by weather, the sentimental story of parental sacrifice) and treat it with ironic realism. In “The Shot,” a man who has spent years planning his revenge discovers that the satisfaction of vengeance is less interesting than the anticipation. In “The Stationmaster,” a father whose daughter has been “seduced” by a passing hussar discovers she is perfectly happy. In each case, literary convention is measured against human reality and found inadequate.
The stories founded the tradition of Russian prose fiction: their apparent simplicity conceals extraordinary sophistication, and their influence on Gogol, Turgenev, Chekhov, and every subsequent Russian short story writer is incalculable. Pushkin demonstrated that Russian prose could be as perfectly crafted as Russian verse.
Collecting The Tales of Belkin
First edition (St. Petersburg, 1831): Russian-language.
Market values:
- Original Russian editions: Extremely rare
- Fine translations: $10–$30