SOURCE: "Experiments with Narrative Modes," in The Other Pushkin: A Study of Alexander Pushkin's Prose Fiction, Stanford University Press, 1983, 386 p.

In the following essay, Debreczeny discusses innovative developments in the narrative technique of Pushkin's prose fiction.

I

Pushkin made his first serious attempt at writing fiction in the summer of 1827, when he completed six chapters of a proposed historical novel, now known to us as The Blackamoor of Peter the Great. The prototype for its central character, Ibrahim, was Pushkin's maternal great-grandfather, Abram Hannibal, an African who had been brought to Russia as a child during the reign of Peter I. Having been raised by Peter, Ibrahim (like the actual Hannibal) was sent to Paris to study military engineering. When we meet him in the opening chapter of the novel, he has already finished his training and distinguished himself in French military service, and would be ready to...