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The Queen of Spades (story)

December 11, 2023

The Queen of Spades (Russian: «Пиковая дама», romanized: Pikovaya dama) is a short story with supernatural elements by Alexander Pushkin, about human avarice. Written in autumn 1833 in Boldino,[1] it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in March 1834.[2]

The story served as basis for the operas The Queen of Spades (1890) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, La dame de pique (1850) by Fromental Halévy and Pique Dame (1864) by Franz von Suppé,[3] and numerous films.

Plot summary edit

 
Obukhov Hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Hermann is committed at the story's conclusion

Hermann, an ethnic German, is an officer of the engineers in the Imperial Russian Army. He constantly watches the other officers gamble, but never plays himself. One night, Tomsky tells a story about his grandmother, a countess. Many years ago, in France, she lost a fortune at faro, and then won it back with the secret of the three winning cards, which she learned from the notorious Count of St. Germain. Hermann becomes obsessed with obtaining the secret.

The countess (now 87 years old) has a young ward, Lizavyeta Ivanovna. Hermann sends love letters to Lizavyeta, and persuades her to let him into the house. There Hermann accosts the countess, demanding the secret. She first tells him that story was a joke. Hermann persists, but she refuses to speak. Finally he threatens her with a pistol, and she dies of fright. He flees to Lizavyeta's apartment (in the same building) and tells her what has happened. He defends himself by saying the pistol was not loaded. Though Lizavyeta helps him escape, she is disgusted to learn that his attentions to her were motivated by greed.

Hermann attends the funeral of the countess, and is terrified to see the countess open her eyes in the coffin and look at him. Later that night, her ghost appears to him and names the secret three cards (three, seven, and ace). It tells him he must play just once each night and then orders him to marry Lizavyeta. Hermann takes his entire savings to Chekalinsky's salon, where wealthy men gamble at faro for high stakes. On the first night, he bets it all on the three and wins. On the second night, he wins on the seven. On the third night, he bets on the ace—but when the cards are shown, he finds he has bet on the Queen of Spades, not the ace, and he loses everything. When the Queen appears to wink at him, he is astonished by her remarkable resemblance to the old countess, and flees in terror.

In a short conclusion, Pushkin writes that Lizavyeta marries the son of the Countess' former steward, a state official who makes a good salary. Hermann, however, goes mad and is committed to an asylum. He is installed in Room 17 at the Obukhov hospital; he answers no questions, but merely mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!"

Inspiration edit

The countess was inspired by Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna, who served as lady-in-waiting for five Russian emperors and was 92 at the time Pushkin wrote "The Queen of Spades".[4] According to a legend, Golitsyna had been a successful gambler. When her grandson lost a considerable amount of money playing cards and came to her to beg her for money, Golitsyna instead revealed to him the secret three cards that Count Saint-Germain showed to her in Paris.[5] However, while the Countess died in the story, Golitsyna outlived Pushkin and reached the age of 97.[6]

Some critics believe the Count Saint-Germain holds historical importance in the story. Saint-Germain serves as the namesake for the story's protagonist, Hermann. Beyond this, the historical Saint-Germain may represent a father figure for Hermann, the antithesis to Hermann's character, or a former love interest of the countess who seeks revenge for her death by causing Hermann to pick the wrong cards.[7]

The card game of faro is played by having a player bet on a winning card. The dealer then begins turning over cards, turning the first (known as "soda") to his left. The second card is placed face up to his right; this is the first winning card. The third card is placed face up in the left pile, as a losing card. The dealer continues turning over cards, alternating piles until the bet has been won or lost.[8]

Themes edit

Reality vs. the supernatural edit

 
Graffiti in Kharkiv, 2008

According to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Pushkin’s tale represents “the pinnacle of the art of the fantastic”.[9] Pushkin does not make it clear whether the story is completely rational or has supernatural elements. For instance, does the countess appear to Hermann in his imagination or a dream, or did he see an actual apparition? Critics have attempted to answer this question using a variety of cryptographic clues within the text. These critics focus on three elements: the origin of the three, seven and ace; whether Hermann could have identified the cards without the ghost’s intervention, and possible explanations for Hermann’s mistake with the last card.[5]

The critic Gary Rosenshield claims that, by making the wrong choice of cards, Hermann actually did the right thing: as a man obsessed with gambling, having won the money would have meant that he could never gamble again, and therefore would have never again lived.[10]

Critics who favour a rational explanation, such as Nathan Rosen and Viktor Vonogradov, claim that Hermann may have simply seen a likeness between the Countess who gave him the secret and the Queen card, leading him to make a mistake.[11][12] This explanation focuses on Pushkin’s quote in the story that “Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.” Here, Hermann cannot separate the actual cards from the Countess who reveals them to him, leading him to accidentally choose the queen instead of an ace.

Critics who favour a supernatural interpretation argue that the card changed after Hermann had picked it. These explanations argue that the Countess sought revenge on Hermann for her death. Critic Sergei Davydov argues that, since the Countess doubted that Hermann would indeed marry Lizavyeta—a concession he had made to acquire the secret—her ghost caused a magical transformation of the cards that led to Hermann’s downfall.[5]

Storytelling edit

Pushkin's tale is considered to be a work about "telling stories". Hermann in a way attempts to author his own fate by setting up a gambling situation in which he is guaranteed to win. Hermann's motivations to set up the scenario also come primarily from gossip, or word of mouth from his acquaintances. It is as if he is set within a story told by others, and feels inspired to write his own.[13]

One reading of The Queen of Spades holds that the story reveals the Russian stereotype of the German, one who is a cold and calculating person bent on accumulating wealth.[14]

Avarice edit

Rosenshield describes Pushkin’s Queen of Spades as an “eternal tale of gambling and avarice”.[15] In the story, Hermann becomes obsessed by gambling, even before the Countess grants him her secret to the cards. According to critic Nathan Rosen, Hermann’s fatal mistake at the end of the story constitutes an act of self-punishment: Hermann punishes himself for the avarice of his corrupted soul.[16] Beyond this greed in the form of his gambling obsession, Hermann’s avarice manifests itself in his dealings with Lizavyeta and the Countess. From the moment when he first sets eye on her, Hermann manipulates Lizaveta and her “injured innocence” to gain access to the Countess and the gambling secrets she holds; however, Hermann’s “depravity becomes fully manifest in the climactic bedroom scene” when he trespasses into the Countess’ room and causes her death.[17]

Style edit

Pushkin uses metapoetic moments throughout the story to question the reliability of the narrator and to discern the genre of the work. These metapoetic moments refer to the story dealing with stories internally. One of the clearest example of this takes place after Hermann’s encounter with the countess’ ghostly form. After her departure, Hermann immediately writes down his vision, recording it on paper and writing a small story within the larger story of The Queen of Spades.[13] A second example is when Tomsky and his grandmother talk about traditional plot lines within a Russian novel, of which his grandmother denies the existence.[13]

Adaptations edit

One of the most notable adaptations of The Queen of Spades was a film produced by Anatole de Grunwald completed in 1949. This film is recognized for its fidelity to the original story with few differences such as the depiction of the backstory about how the Countess acquired the secret of the three winning cards.[18] This film was directed by Thorold Dickinson. It received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for the BAFTA award for Best British Film.

Pushkin's story has been adapted numerous times into multiple mediums. These include:

The story has also been adapted for radio, including:

References edit

  1. ^ Binyon, Pushkin: A Biography, p. 424.
  2. ^ Binyon, Pushkin: A Biography, p. 444.
  3. ^ The Operatic Pushkin.
  4. ^ Pushkin, Alexander (2013-11-17). Delphi Collected Works of Alexander Pushkin (Illustrated). Delphi Classics. ISBN 9781908909688.
  5. ^ a b c Davydov, Sergei (1999-01-01). "The Ace in "The Queen of Spades"". Slavic Review. 58 (2): 309–328. doi:10.2307/2673073. JSTOR 2673073. S2CID 164077616.
  6. ^ Zinovieff, Kyril; Hughes, Jenny (2005). The Companion Guide to St Petersburg. Suffolk, UK: Companion Guides. pp. 103. ISBN 1900639408.
  7. ^ Corwell, Neil (2002-01-01). ""You've heard of the Count Saint-Germain ..." —in Pushkin's 'The Queen of Spades' and Far Beyond". New Zealand Slavonic Journal: 49–66. JSTOR 40922261.
  8. ^ "Playing Cards, Card Games and Rules, Games and Family Fun from Bicycle". www.bicyclecards.ca. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
  9. ^ Dostoyevsky, Fyodor; Dolinin, A. S. (1935-01-01). F. M. Dostoevskiĭ: materialy i issledovanii︠a︡ (in Russian). Leningrad: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR. OCLC 9670217.
  10. ^ Rosenshield, Gary (1994-01-01). "Choosing the Right Card: Madness, Gambling, and the Imagination in Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades"". PMLA. 109 (5): 995–1008. doi:10.2307/462967. JSTOR 462967. S2CID 163513063.
  11. ^ Rosen, Nathan (1975-01-01). "The Magic Cards in The Queen of Spades". The Slavic and East European Journal. 19 (3): 255–275. doi:10.2307/306284. JSTOR 306284.
  12. ^ Vinogradov (1936). "Stil' "Pikovoi damy"". feb-web.ru. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
  13. ^ a b c Douglas, Clayton, J. ""The Queen of Spades": A Seriously Intended Joke / Пушкинский вестник". The Pushkin Review. Retrieved 2016-03-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ Barabtarlo, Gennady (2000). Cold Fusion: Aspects of the German Cultural Presence in Russia. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 50. ISBN 1571811885.
  15. ^ Gregg, Richard. “Germann the Confessor and the Stony, Seated Countess: The Moral Subtext of Pushkin's 'the Queen of Spades'”. The Slavonic and East European Review 78.4 (2000): 612–624.
  16. ^ Rosen, Nathan. "The Magic Cards in the Queen of Spades". The Slavic and East European Journal 19.3 (1975): 255–275.
  17. ^ Rosenshield, Gary. Pushkin and the Genres of Madness: The Masterpieces of 1833. Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin, 2003. Print.
  18. ^ Backer, Ron (2015). Classic Horror Films and the Literature That Inspired Them. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 40. ISBN 9780786498963.
  19. ^ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255150/[user-generated source]
  20. ^ "Those Were the Days". Nostalgia Digest. 42 (3): 39. Summer 2016.

21. Cradle Of Filth. "Lord Abortion", Midian (2000). © Universal Music Publishing Group.

External links edit

 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
The Queen of Spades
  • Пиковая дама available at Russian Virtual Library (in Russian)
  • "The Queen of Spades", transl. by Rosemary Edmonds
  •   Queen of Spades public domain audiobook at LibriVox
  • Queen of Spades (1910) on YouTube (English subtitles)
  • Opera Queen of Spades on YouTube

December 11, 2023
queen, spades, story, queen, spades, russian, Пиковая, дама, romanized, pikovaya, dama, short, story, with, supernatural, elements, alexander, pushkin, about, human, avarice, written, autumn, 1833, boldino, first, published, literary, magazine, biblioteka, dly. The Queen of Spades Russian Pikovaya dama romanized Pikovaya dama is a short story with supernatural elements by Alexander Pushkin about human avarice Written in autumn 1833 in Boldino 1 it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in March 1834 2 The story served as basis for the operas The Queen of Spades 1890 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky La dame de pique 1850 by Fromental Halevy and Pique Dame 1864 by Franz von Suppe 3 and numerous films Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Inspiration 3 Themes 3 1 Reality vs the supernatural 3 2 Storytelling 3 3 Avarice 4 Style 5 Adaptations 6 References 7 External linksPlot summary edit nbsp Obukhov Hospital in St Petersburg Russia where Hermann is committed at the story s conclusionHermann an ethnic German is an officer of the engineers in the Imperial Russian Army He constantly watches the other officers gamble but never plays himself One night Tomsky tells a story about his grandmother a countess Many years ago in France she lost a fortune at faro and then won it back with the secret of the three winning cards which she learned from the notorious Count of St Germain Hermann becomes obsessed with obtaining the secret The countess now 87 years old has a young ward Lizavyeta Ivanovna Hermann sends love letters to Lizavyeta and persuades her to let him into the house There Hermann accosts the countess demanding the secret She first tells him that story was a joke Hermann persists but she refuses to speak Finally he threatens her with a pistol and she dies of fright He flees to Lizavyeta s apartment in the same building and tells her what has happened He defends himself by saying the pistol was not loaded Though Lizavyeta helps him escape she is disgusted to learn that his attentions to her were motivated by greed Hermann attends the funeral of the countess and is terrified to see the countess open her eyes in the coffin and look at him Later that night her ghost appears to him and names the secret three cards three seven and ace It tells him he must play just once each night and then orders him to marry Lizavyeta Hermann takes his entire savings to Chekalinsky s salon where wealthy men gamble at faro for high stakes On the first night he bets it all on the three and wins On the second night he wins on the seven On the third night he bets on the ace but when the cards are shown he finds he has bet on the Queen of Spades not the ace and he loses everything When the Queen appears to wink at him he is astonished by her remarkable resemblance to the old countess and flees in terror In a short conclusion Pushkin writes that Lizavyeta marries the son of the Countess former steward a state official who makes a good salary Hermann however goes mad and is committed to an asylum He is installed in Room 17 at the Obukhov hospital he answers no questions but merely mutters with unusual rapidity Three seven ace Three seven queen Inspiration editThe countess was inspired by Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna who served as lady in waiting for five Russian emperors and was 92 at the time Pushkin wrote The Queen of Spades 4 According to a legend Golitsyna had been a successful gambler When her grandson lost a considerable amount of money playing cards and came to her to beg her for money Golitsyna instead revealed to him the secret three cards that Count Saint Germain showed to her in Paris 5 However while the Countess died in the story Golitsyna outlived Pushkin and reached the age of 97 6 Some critics believe the Count Saint Germain holds historical importance in the story Saint Germain serves as the namesake for the story s protagonist Hermann Beyond this the historical Saint Germain may represent a father figure for Hermann the antithesis to Hermann s character or a former love interest of the countess who seeks revenge for her death by causing Hermann to pick the wrong cards 7 The card game of faro is played by having a player bet on a winning card The dealer then begins turning over cards turning the first known as soda to his left The second card is placed face up to his right this is the first winning card The third card is placed face up in the left pile as a losing card The dealer continues turning over cards alternating piles until the bet has been won or lost 8 Themes editReality vs the supernatural edit nbsp Graffiti in Kharkiv 2008According to Fyodor Dostoyevsky Pushkin s tale represents the pinnacle of the art of the fantastic 9 Pushkin does not make it clear whether the story is completely rational or has supernatural elements For instance does the countess appear to Hermann in his imagination or a dream or did he see an actual apparition Critics have attempted to answer this question using a variety of cryptographic clues within the text These critics focus on three elements the origin of the three seven and ace whether Hermann could have identified the cards without the ghost s intervention and possible explanations for Hermann s mistake with the last card 5 The critic Gary Rosenshield claims that by making the wrong choice of cards Hermann actually did the right thing as a man obsessed with gambling having won the money would have meant that he could never gamble again and therefore would have never again lived 10 Critics who favour a rational explanation such as Nathan Rosen and Viktor Vonogradov claim that Hermann may have simply seen a likeness between the Countess who gave him the secret and the Queen card leading him to make a mistake 11 12 This explanation focuses on Pushkin s quote in the story that Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world Here Hermann cannot separate the actual cards from the Countess who reveals them to him leading him to accidentally choose the queen instead of an ace Critics who favour a supernatural interpretation argue that the card changed after Hermann had picked it These explanations argue that the Countess sought revenge on Hermann for her death Critic Sergei Davydov argues that since the Countess doubted that Hermann would indeed marry Lizavyeta a concession he had made to acquire the secret her ghost caused a magical transformation of the cards that led to Hermann s downfall 5 Storytelling edit Pushkin s tale is considered to be a work about telling stories Hermann in a way attempts to author his own fate by setting up a gambling situation in which he is guaranteed to win Hermann s motivations to set up the scenario also come primarily from gossip or word of mouth from his acquaintances It is as if he is set within a story told by others and feels inspired to write his own 13 One reading of The Queen of Spades holds that the story reveals the Russian stereotype of the German one who is a cold and calculating person bent on accumulating wealth 14 Avarice edit Rosenshield describes Pushkin s Queen of Spades as an eternal tale of gambling and avarice 15 In the story Hermann becomes obsessed by gambling even before the Countess grants him her secret to the cards According to critic Nathan Rosen Hermann s fatal mistake at the end of the story constitutes an act of self punishment Hermann punishes himself for the avarice of his corrupted soul 16 Beyond this greed in the form of his gambling obsession Hermann s avarice manifests itself in his dealings with Lizavyeta and the Countess From the moment when he first sets eye on her Hermann manipulates Lizaveta and her injured innocence to gain access to the Countess and the gambling secrets she holds however Hermann s depravity becomes fully manifest in the climactic bedroom scene when he trespasses into the Countess room and causes her death 17 Style editPushkin uses metapoetic moments throughout the story to question the reliability of the narrator and to discern the genre of the work These metapoetic moments refer to the story dealing with stories internally One of the clearest example of this takes place after Hermann s encounter with the countess ghostly form After her departure Hermann immediately writes down his vision recording it on paper and writing a small story within the larger story of The Queen of Spades 13 A second example is when Tomsky and his grandmother talk about traditional plot lines within a Russian novel of which his grandmother denies the existence 13 Adaptations editOne of the most notable adaptations of The Queen of Spades was a film produced by Anatole de Grunwald completed in 1949 This film is recognized for its fidelity to the original story with few differences such as the depiction of the backstory about how the Countess acquired the secret of the three winning cards 18 This film was directed by Thorold Dickinson It received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for the BAFTA award for Best British Film Pushkin s story has been adapted numerous times into multiple mediums These include An 1864 German operetta by Franz von Suppe An 1890 opera by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky A 1910 Russian silent short film directed by Pyotr Chardynin A 1916 Russian silent film directed by Yakov Protazanov A 1927 German silent film The 1949 British film The Queen of Spades produced by Anatole de Grunwald A 1960 Soviet film directed by Roman Tikhomirov A 1982 Soviet film by Igor Maslennikov A 1988 Soviet film These three trusty cards 19 by Aleksandr OrlovThe story has also been adapted for radio including The 9 November 1947 episode of Mystery in the Air starring Peter Lorre as Hermann 20 A 1997 BBC Radio 4 adaptation for the Afternoon Drama series with Greg Wise and Amanda Root References edit Binyon Pushkin A Biography p 424 Binyon Pushkin A Biography p 444 The Operatic Pushkin Pushkin Alexander 2013 11 17 Delphi Collected Works of Alexander Pushkin Illustrated Delphi Classics ISBN 9781908909688 a b c Davydov Sergei 1999 01 01 The Ace in The Queen of Spades Slavic Review 58 2 309 328 doi 10 2307 2673073 JSTOR 2673073 S2CID 164077616 Zinovieff Kyril Hughes Jenny 2005 The Companion Guide to St Petersburg Suffolk UK Companion Guides pp 103 ISBN 1900639408 Corwell Neil 2002 01 01 You ve heard of the Count Saint Germain in Pushkin s The Queen of Spades and Far Beyond New Zealand Slavonic Journal 49 66 JSTOR 40922261 Playing Cards Card Games and Rules Games and Family Fun from Bicycle www bicyclecards ca Retrieved 2016 03 08 Dostoyevsky Fyodor Dolinin A S 1935 01 01 F M Dostoevskiĭ materialy i issledovanii a in Russian Leningrad Izd vo Akademii nauk SSSR OCLC 9670217 Rosenshield Gary 1994 01 01 Choosing the Right Card Madness Gambling and the Imagination in Pushkin s The Queen of Spades PMLA 109 5 995 1008 doi 10 2307 462967 JSTOR 462967 S2CID 163513063 Rosen Nathan 1975 01 01 The Magic Cards in The Queen of Spades The Slavic and East European Journal 19 3 255 275 doi 10 2307 306284 JSTOR 306284 Vinogradov 1936 Stil Pikovoi damy feb web ru Retrieved 2016 03 08 a b c Douglas Clayton J The Queen of Spades A Seriously Intended Joke Pushkinskij vestnik The Pushkin Review Retrieved 2016 03 08 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Barabtarlo Gennady 2000 Cold Fusion Aspects of the German Cultural Presence in Russia New York Berghahn Books p 50 ISBN 1571811885 Gregg Richard Germann the Confessor and the Stony Seated Countess The Moral Subtext of Pushkin s the Queen of Spades The Slavonic and East European Review 78 4 2000 612 624 Rosen Nathan The Magic Cards in the Queen of Spades The Slavic and East European Journal 19 3 1975 255 275 Rosenshield Gary Pushkin and the Genres of Madness The Masterpieces of 1833 Madison WI U of Wisconsin 2003 Print Backer Ron 2015 Classic Horror Films and the Literature That Inspired Them Jefferson NC McFarland p 40 ISBN 9780786498963 https www imdb com title tt0255150 user generated source Those Were the Days Nostalgia Digest 42 3 39 Summer 2016 21 Cradle Of Filth Lord Abortion Midian 2000 c Universal Music Publishing Group External links edit nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article The Queen of Spades Pikovaya dama available at Russian Virtual Library in Russian The Queen of Spades transl by Rosemary Edmonds nbsp Queen of Spades public domain audiobook at LibriVox Queen of Spades 1910 on YouTube English subtitles Opera Queen of Spades on YouTube Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Queen of Spades story amp oldid 1186146116, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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