The Novice (poem)
Author | Mikhail Lermontov |
---|---|
Original title | Мцыри |
Country | Russian Empire |
Language | Russian |
Genre | Poem |
Publication date | 1840 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
The Novice ("Mtsyri", Мцыри in Russian, distortion of Georgian მწირი /mts'iri/) is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov written in 1839 and first published in 1840, hailed as "one of the last examples of the classic Russian romantic poetry," according to the Lermontov Encyclopedia.[1]
Background
Some Russian scholars (like S. Durylin) consider three poems – "The Confession", Boyarin Orsha and Mtsyry as three different executions of one original idea. In 1831 15-year-old Lermontov wrote in his diary: "To write the tale of a young 17-year old monk who's lived in a monastery from childhood. Read nothing but the sacred books. The passionate soul, he feels imprisoned..."[1]
The poem's central episode, Mtsyri's fight with a wild cat was apparently based on the traditional Georgian folklore; there are 14 versions of the old Georgian song "Young Man and a Tiger", one of which (the Khevsur song) has been used by Shota Rustaveli in his epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin.[1]
Citing the poet's relatives Akim Shan-Girey and Akim Khastatov, biographer
Some scholars (
History
The exact date of the poem's completion, according to the autograph, was August 5, 1839. According to the same manuscript, Mtsyri was called originally Beri (A Monk, in Georgian) and featured an epigraph ("On n'a qu'une seule patria", There is only one fatherland) which later had been crossed out by the author. It was this hand-written document that allowed researchers decades later to return into the poem two fragments cut out by censors. Those were the two lines from Verse 8 ("...To learn if it if for freedom or for prison that we are born into this world") and seven lines from the penultimate Verse 25 ("...But what's in it for me? Should my spirit finds itself in Paradise, this saintly heavenly place, I'd throw away both Paradise and the Eternity // For just one chance to spend several minutes among those dark steep rock where I used to play as a child".)[3]
Links
Full text in English translation