Published in 1836. In Sovremennik, John Tanner, a review of the book by an American who was abducted as a child by Indians and lived among them for 30 years, A. S. Pushkin described American bourgeois democracy: "For some time now, the North American States have attracted the attention of the most thinking people in Europe. It is not political events that are responsible for this: America is calmly pursuing its career, hitherto safe and flourishing, strong in the world, strengthened by its geographical position, proud of its institutions. But several deep minds have lately been engaged in investigating the manners and ordinances of the United States, and their observations have again raised questions that were supposed to have been settled long ago. Respect for this new people and for its code, the fruit of modern enlightenment, has been greatly shaken. They were astonished to see democracy in its abominable cynicism, its cruel prejudices, and its intolerable tyranny. All that is noble, unselfish, and uplifting to the human soul-suppressed by relentless selfishness and the desire for contentment (comfort); the majority, blatantly oppressing society; the slavery of Negroes in the midst of education and freedom; genealogical persecution in a people without nobility; greed and envy on the part of the electors; timidity and obsequiousness on the part of managers; talent, out of which there is no nobility. respect for equality forced into voluntary ostracism; a rich man who puts on a ragged coat so as not to offend the haughty poverty he secretly despises in the street: This is the picture of the American States that has recently been put before us. " 1
The literature dealing with this assessment of the United States in John Tanner and the sources Pushkin relies on is sparse. All of it is named in the review of Academician M. P. Alekseev, which summed up the consideration of the issue here and abroad, "To Pushkin's article" John Tanner " 2 . Of the more recent works, we will mention reviews in monographs devoted to more general issues of Russian-American relations and relations .3
Pushkin's book acquisitions in the last year or two before he began working on John Tanner helped Pushkinists mostly clarify who he meant when he spoke of the "thinking people" who had recently taken up "a study of American mores and ordinances." Pushkin himself names one of these researchers. "Tocqueville, author of the famous book: De la democratie en Ame-

1 Pushkin A. S. Poly. collected works. In 10 vols. Vol. 7. Moscow, 1958, pp. 434-435. "John Tanner" is quoted later in this edition.

2 Provisional Journal of the Pushkin Commission. 1966. L. 1969, pp. 50-56.

3 Bolkhovitinov N. N. Russko-amerikanskie otnosheniya [Russian-American relations]. 1815-1832. Moscow, 1975, pp. 560-566; Nikolyukin A. N. Literaturnye svyazi Rossii i SSHA. Moscow, 1981 (see the chapter "Pushkin and American Literature").

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rique, " he writes in John Tanner .4 M. P. Alekseev's article names two other works of the same period, also preserved in Pushkin's personal collection and devoted to the same problems as Tocqueville's book. This is the French book " Maria or Slavery in the United States. The Picture of American Morals by G. Beaumont and Another, English (in Pushkin's French translation) "People and Morals in America" by T. Hamilton 5 . The question of the place and role of these sources in Pushkin's study of the American theme remains less well-covered.

Tocqueville's book, which thundered in its time, took, as is known, a strong place in the European historiography of the United States. It is noteworthy that both American historians and publicists, who were very suspicious of overseas criticism, had to reckon with Tocqueville's speech as a certain major milestone in the assessment of American reality. Even today, when it comes to "pain points" in the American state and public life, sociologists in the United States once again turn to Tocqueville to determine what has changed so far and how, and often come to disappointing conclusions .6 The other two books mentioned (Beaumont and Hamilton), although less popular than Tocqueville's work, are among the most prominent public responses to current American life in this pan-European discussion. Hamilton's Men and Manners in America, published in London in 1833, was published a year later in France and Germany. Beaumont's Maria, published in Paris in 1835, was immediately translated into German. In St. Petersburg, the Biblioteka dlya Chteniya published her presentation with extensive excerpts in the same year7 .

Thus, if one asks whether these sources are sufficiently solid for the task undertaken by Pushkin, the answer should be yes. In this connection, it is interesting to note that seven years later, the young Marx, who was already very familiar with European political literature, referred to the same three books: Beaumont, Tocqueville, and the Englishman Hamilton, when he needed reliable material from the social life of the United States in a polemic with B. Bauer in the German - French Yearbook, 8 and quoted Beaumont and Hamilton.

Beaumont accompanied Tocqueville on his trip to the United States and co-wrote (this was the official purpose of their trip) a book about the American prison system. And Beaumont's "Maria" also seems to be a "satellite" of Tocqueville's "American Democracy", coinciding with it in all its basic settings. M. P. Alekseev calls Beaumont's "Maria" a story, which, however, does not characterize the book as a novel.

4 Pushkin A. S. Poly. collected works vol. 7, p. 437. The book is preserved in the Pushkin Library: A. de Tocqueville. De la Democratie en Amerique. 4-ed. P. 1835, Vol. 1-2. (Modzalevsky B. L. Library of A. S. Pushkin. In: Pushkin and his Contemporaries. Issue IX-X. St. Petersburg, 1910, N 1440).

5 Beaumont G. Marie ou l'Esclavage aux Etats-Unis. Tableau de Moeurs Americains. Vol. 1 - 2. P. 1836; Colonel Hamilton. Les Hommes et les Moeurs aux Etats-Unis d'Amerique. P. 1834. Vol. 1-2. (Modzalevsky B. L. UK soch NN 589,968).

6 См., напр., McCarthy E. America Revisited 150 Years after Tocqueville. N. Y. 1978. McCarthy writes :" What is the political situation in the United States about 150 years after Tocqueville's trip? At first glance, and perhaps even on closer inspection, one might argue that it has not changed much, or at least it has changed for the worse" (pit. by: McCarthy Yu. Visiting America again. 150 years after the journey of A. de Tocqueville, Moscow 1981, pp. 180-181).

7 Maria or slavery in the United States. - Library for Reading, 1835, vol. XI, July, II, pp. 51-66. The book is available in the Pushkin Library (Modzalevsky B. L. UK. soch., N 459).

8 K. Marx and F. Engels Soch. Vol. 1, p. 387.

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completely. This is really a story about how a visiting Frenchman fell in love with an American girl whose distant ancestor was a Black man, and how the prevailing racism in the United States brought them misfortune and death. But this is only half of Beaumont's book. The other half - appendices and notes-contains richly documented, extensive excursions on a number of acute problems of public life in the United States, in particular on the issue of slavery, the persecution and extermination of Indians, the place of religion in the American republic, etc.

In the preface to the story, Beaumont stipulates that only the characters are fictitious in it, while the events fully correspond to his personal observations and established facts .9 In general, this is also a sociological study, but it is built in its own way. Tocqueville, in recommending Beaumont's Maria to the reader, speaks of the "precious documentary evidence" that it contains on issues that he, Tocqueville, "has only just touched upon." 10 At the same time (and it is important to add), the "free" form of the book allows Beaumont to express in the language of direct feelings and emotions much of what is given in Tocqueville in more restrained terms of sociological journalism. Hamilton's "People and Manners in America" is an account of the trip to the United States of this Scot who prefers to stick to facts, written by him with a special purpose: to acquaint English readers with the social and political life of the transatlantic republic.

Tocqueville says that he examines American government institutions and social systems to take into account the political experience accumulated there and indicate what Europeans should borrow from it and what they should avoid. In this sense, he emphasizes the open-mindedness of his observations and the impartiality of his analysis, and the unwillingness "neither to serve any party as his book, nor to fight it." 11 Beaumont agrees with Tocqueville. Hamilton's position is quite different. He began his work after he saw that in the "reformed parliament" (i.e., in the English Parliament after the famous reform of 1832, when the industrial bourgeoisie increased its representation in the House of Commons) "there were people who cite American legislative measures and experience as an example for British laws." and "other fools, equally brainless", "listen to these speeches with approval" 12 "Here is an English Tory who begins his acquaintance with New York by visiting the grave of his namesake Alexander Hamilton in Trinity Church Cemetery and reflects on the "sobriety" of the state views of this Anglophile and one of the most moderate "founding fathers" of the United States in comparison with " dreams of human perfection that turned Jefferson's less powerful heads and Madison" 13 .

Tocqueville covers with sufficient completeness the social advantages that" different (social) conditions " (l'egalite de conditions) in the American republic give to an emigrant who has fled a country burdened with class privileges. The hard-headed Hamilton is also ready to admit that, unlike England, "there is no class of people in the United States who are doomed by unmanageable circumstances to hopeless poverty," and tells about meeting an Irishman who went to America barefoot and hungry, and now eats well, dressed in a warm dress, " almost does not suffer from the tax collector and is free quite from the exactions of the church with its tithes " and . Especially the denominator-

9 Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 11.

10 Тocqueville A. de. Op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 304.

11 Ibid. Vol, l, p. 26.

12 Hamilton. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. X.

13 Ibid., p. 42.

14 Ibid., pp. 125, 138.

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but it is clear that in many of the most important negative characteristics of contemporary American reality, the observations of Tocqueville and Beaumont, on the one hand, and Hamilton, on the other, significantly converge. The main glaring vices of American society that they note are, first, the shameful slavery of Negroes in a self-described democratic society and, second, the pervasive spirit of insatiable profit, the fierce pursuit of money to the obvious detriment of the spiritual life of the country, morals, and art.

All three are unanimous in their condemnation of the inhumane slavery and discrimination of Negroes in the United States and precisely, as Pushkin puts it, existing "in the midst of education and freedom." "While the speakers in the Congressional Chamber, in round periods, are praising freedom and proclaiming as much as they can that all people are equal," Hamilton says, describing the debate at the American Congress in Washington, " on the other side of the city, live human flesh is being sold under the hammer." A little further on, he draws a monstrous sale of a sick black slave at a public auction in New Orleans, which is unbridled cynicism and inhumanity .15 And yet, he comments, Americans claim to be "the most moral, virtuous, and enlightened people in the world." 16 He considers it a mistake to assume that in the "free" northern states, slavery can be considered abolished. Despite his complete disenfranchisement, the Negro remains a slave even there, only a "slave without a master" 17 .

Hamilton tells the story of a mulatto, the son of a high-ranking Haitian general, an educated young man who is not allowed in any of the New York hotels and in the theater is allowed to go only to gallery 18 . Beaumont is talking about a white American who has inherited a share of Black blood, who is scandalously thrown out of an auditorium in New York as a "colored man". Wanting to defend his honor, the French narrator slaps one of the persecutors in the face and challenges him to a duel. But the practical "Yankee" does not agree to risk his life and prefers to pursue the offender who gave him a slap in the face in court 19 . One of Beaumont's characters believes that even Americans who speak out for the emancipation of slaves are acting out of self-interest, in the interests of industry: "The free worker will work better than the slave." 20 Hamilton explicitly points out that slavery is abolished in those parts of the state where it actually hindered the development of industry, and where it is profitable, it remains there, and he predicts that slavery will fall only "after a great and terrible upheaval." 21
The second thing that both Tocqueville, Hamilton, and Beaumont strongly write about is the atmosphere of greed, commercialism, and vulgar-utilitarian criteria that reigns supreme in the life of the transatlantic republic. Pushkin's lines " everything noble, unselfish, everything that elevates the human soul-suppressed by relentless selfishness and passion for contentment (comfort)" can largely be considered a generalization of the material collected by these authors.

"The relations of people among themselves here have no other object than money, the only goal is profit... Money, the deity of the United States, " we read in Beaumont 22 . Travelers are amazed

15 Ibid. Vol. 2, pp. 142, 213 - 214.

16 Ibid., p. 215.

17 Ibid. Vol. 1, pp. 85, 86.

18 Ibid., pp. 88 - 89.

19 Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, pp. 193 - 197.

20 Ibid., p. 134.

21 Hamilton. Op. cit. Vol. 2, pp. 216, 222.

22 Веaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 63.

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not so much the dishonesty of American commercial mores (there was plenty of commercial fraud in their countries), but the complete acceptance of it in the United States as a moral and social norm. The reserved Tocqueville finds an elegant formulation: "Americans often refer to what we call greed as laudable resourcefulness." 23 The Englishman cuts from the shoulder: "I have heard public approval of actions that in England would lead a person to Botany Bay (a colony in Australia where English criminals were exiled. - A. S.) or they would have completely disgraced him " 24 .

One of Beaumont's chapters consists of small diary notes of his French hero traveling in the United States, dedicated to the spiritual life of the transatlantic republic. They are filled with amazement and deep protest. "Don't look for poetry, literature, or fine arts in this country... Turenne was almost as proud of his ancient lineage as of his military exploits; Ninon was a courtesan; the illustrious Bossuet was jealous of Fenelon's fame. Americans boast of wealth, lust for wealth, and envy the rich... Let's imagine that an inspired poet was born in this business environment... How much can you sing in front of a deaf audience?.. He will be silenced by indifference and coldness... The first profession is considered the one that gives more money... Tell an American about the fame of Tasso, Homer, and he will tell you that both died beggars. Why do we need talent that doesn't generate income? There is no classical or romantic school here, only one - commercial... A writer sells his thoughts like another cloth merchant. His office is an accounting office, his imagination is a grocery store. " 25
Even religion does not avoid this general commercialization of spiritual life. It is interesting to note that Marx, in order to show that in the conditions of bourgeois society even "the dignity of a Christian teacher becomes a commodity," cites in his polemic with Bauer an example taken by Beaumont from the life of the United States. "The man you see at the head of a venerable congregation was at first a merchant; when he failed in this business, he became a clergyman; another began in the service of God, but as soon as he had a certain amount of money in his hands, he exchanged the pulpit for a trade. In the eyes of the majority, ecclesiastical rank is a real profitable trade. " 26
This tight circle of commercialism and greed is so omnipotent that it threatens irreparable calamities to the careless dreamer or the brave man who dares to challenge society. "A young man who finds a passion for Mozart or Michelangelo has a lot to lose in public opinion," writes Beaumont 27 . Tocqueville, based on apparently similar observations, draws far-reaching conclusions about the doom of the man of art in the United States: "This does not mean that he (a person who does not bow down with everyone else to the American way of life and thinking. - A. S.) threatened an auto-dafe... But those who blame him express their thoughts openly,

23 Tocqueville A. de. Op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 203.

24 Hamilton. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 110.

25 Вeaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, pp. 238, 241, 246 - 247, 248. In one case, Beaumont says that these thoughts belong to his character, but they are very close to what he says for himself in the notes.

26 K. Marx and F. Engels Soch. Vol. 1, p. 409. In the Russian version of Beaumont's Maria, this excerpt reads as follows: "The one who is now the pastor of a significant parish used to keep a lobaz in an adjacent street, but he was not lucky enough to become a pastor. Another, on the other hand, started out as a pastor, and as soon as he made a decent amount of money, he moved from the oratory to the office... Because the main goal of every American, even in this rank, is to make money " (Library for Reading, 1835, vol. XI, July, II, p. 57).

27 Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 28.

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and those who agree with him,.. they are silent and step aside. He finally concedes,.. he pauses, as if he feels remorse for having spoken the truth." And further: "He must in some way renounce his rights as a citizen, and even, so to speak, his humanity." 28 These observations of Tocqueville are most likely meant by Pushkin when he writes about talent forced "to voluntary ostracism."

A modern historian of American culture could illustrate Tocqueville's subtle observation and Pushkin's conclusion by using the fate of the great American romantic writer H. Melville. Rebelling against the triumphant mercantile spirit in his country, he ran into a blank wall of non-recognition and, already the author of the brilliant "Moby Dick"(1850), in the prime of his creative powers, left literature and spent the long rest of his life (he died in 1891) as a minor obscure official of the New York customs.

Let us now turn to Pushkin's remark about " genealogical persecution among the people who do not have the nobility." Both Tocqueville and Beaumont tend to exaggerate the factor of "equal social conditions" in American bourgeois-democratic society and do not take into account that already at that time in the main commercial and industrial centers of the United States, a layer of the most affluent bourgeoisie was distinguished, claiming the privileges of "birth" and preferential social status (later an astute American novelist of the early twentieth century). W. E. Wharton calls this stratum of the bourgeois elite, not without venom, "the American Faubourg Saint-Germain").

Beaumont believes that American society (we are talking about full-fledged white citizens of the transatlantic republic) does not know social barriers and differences in its environment. He even enters into a polemic on the subject, wanting to challenge Hamilton's observations .29 The latter writes that in Philadelphia," it is not an easy task for a parvenu to infiltrate aristocratic society, "because the" aristocrats "have formed a" holy alliance " to guarantee themselves against such intrusions. He observed the same thing in New York, although in a weakened form, because there, as he explains, "wealth is acquired and sometimes lost at a faster pace." 30 Hamilton is not alone in his observations. F. Trollope, in the early 1830s, noted similar manifestations of social differences in the American province of Cincinnati .31
In St. Petersburg, in 1831, a book was published (without the author's name on the title page). under the title " What is a good tone? North American novel " 32 . Its action unfolds in Washington,

28 Tocqueville A. de. Op. cit. Vol. 2, pp. 151, 156.

29 Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. l, p. 383.

30 Hamilton. Op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 14.

31 F. Trollope, English novelist and journalist (mother of the famous Victorian novelist E. A. Trollope). Trollope) lived in the United States for several years in the early 1830s and wrote the book "Domestic mores of Americans". This book is available in the original English version in the Pushkin Library: Mrs. Trellope. Domestic Manners of the Americans. 4-e ed. P. 1832. Vol. 1-2. (Modzalevsky B. L. UK. soch., N 1450) and should also be taken into account as a source of his information about the United States at that time. F. Trollope is not as educated and politically prepared as young French sociologists and Hamilton, but she can not be denied either neither in common sense, nor in observation. In chapter 9 of the first volume, describing the dullness of the American countryside, she recorded her conversation in Cincinnati with "a gentleman with a literary bent." "How do you feel about Shakespeare here? "Shakespeare is indecent, ma'am!"

32 Translated by K. Masalsky. SPb. Ch. 1-4. 1831. The book is translated from the French edition of 1829, and the subtitle is also taken from there. In the United States, the book was published in 1828 under the title " What is Gentility?" In the reference book by V. A. Libman " American Literature in Russian translations and criticism. Bibliography. 1776-1975" (M. 1977) the book is not listed.

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in the family of a wealthy merchant McCarthy. The family lives in an atmosphere of social snobbery and secular pretensions, dividing everyone around them into people of "high rank" and "low status". The author shows how an ambitious mother of a family seeks to introduce her offspring to the "upper circle". The" noble man " is contrasted with the carpenter who "dared to mingle in good society."

Literaturnaya Gazeta published a chapter from it before the book was published in Russian, and then in February 1831 it published a review of the novel by O. M. Somov, A. A. Delvig's collaborator on Literaturnaya Gazeta and later its editor: "What is a good tone in the North American United States? The very title of this novel is very tempting for the attention of European readers. We assumed that in the Strada, where there is no decisive division of ranks, there are no generic differences... The novel's author, Mrs. Garrison-Smith, the wife of a prominent Washington publicist and a natural North American, was no doubt well acquainted with the local society, its rights, customs, and social conditions. But in the novel she wrote, we see the exact opposite of what we expected. In the United States of America, judging by the image that this writer drew, generic differences are still valued much higher than in European countries. Under democratic forms, the pretensions of aristocratic, well-to-do citizens are a very sharp oddity. And the idol of nobility without a significant distinction of ranks seems ridiculous and inappropriate: it is a Greek Cupid, with a disfigured face and broken wings, turned into a Buryat burkhan. " 33
M. Smith (Garrison-Smith by her husband, as she is called in the preface of the French translator attached to the Russian edition) was the wife of a major American financier and magazine figure, and played a prominent role in Washington society during the 20s and 30s of the last century. The newest American publisher of her correspondence rates her highly as an authoritative life writer and moral historian , 34 and her testimony should not be ignored. And in this case, Hamilton's observations (and Pushkin's conclusion) are probably closer to the truth than Beaumont's argument with Hamilton .

As for the fact that rich people in American political life did not seek to flaunt their hundreds of thousands (as they later did their millions) and covered themselves with demagogic "egalitarianism", both Beaumont and Tocqueville give vivid and illustrative examples. "I remember," Beaumont writes, " seeing Mr. Henry Clay, General Jackson's dangerous rival for the American presidency, walking around in a shabby hat and a torn coat. He sought favor with the people. " 36 Tocqueville tells how a rich American protects everyday luxury with a steward.-

33 Literaturnaya gazeta, 1831, No. 10.

34 См. The First Forty Years of Washington Society in the Family Letters of Margaret Bayard Smith. N. Y. 1965. Preface.

35 As one of his arguments, Beaumont gives an example of how a high-ranking statesman in the United States, talking to him, mentioned his brother, a merchant, a shopkeeper (Beaumont's discharge. Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1. p. 385). Like Count Alexis de Tocqueville, Beaumont de la Boniniere belonged to the French nobility and did not understand that in the United States to be a shopkeeper, especially a prosperous shopkeeper, meant to occupy a sufficiently enviable social position not to be embarrassed in the least.

36 Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 227. In the program "Libraries for Reading", this passage reads as follows :" I met H. Henry Clay, this dangerous opponent of Jackson, when he was trying to get the presidency: he was wearing a worn, old hat and a soiled coat; he was serving up to the people " (Library for Reading, 1835, July, II, p. 66).

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37. he walks down the street more simply dressed and publicly shakes hands with the handyman who makes his boots . Such observations seem to give rise to Pushkin's remark about " a rich man who puts on a ragged caftan so as not to offend the haughty poverty that he secretly despises in the street."

Since Pushkin's article concerns the life of American Indians, it is natural that in his general criticism of American society, much attention is paid to their sad fate. Thus, we read: "The relations of the States to the Indian tribes, the ancient owners of the land now inhabited by European immigrants, were also subjected to a strict analysis by new observers. The blatant injustice, blackmail, and inhumanity of the American Congress are indignantly condemned." Pushkin adds that "Tenner's Notes" will bear witness to the world about the means that the American States used in the nineteenth century to spread their rule and Christian civilization. " 38
Tocqueville devotes many damning lines to the tragic fate of the Indians. He writes that the American settlers have condemned the Indian tribes to a life of desolation, full of terrible disasters. Accompanying his words with documents, he describes how, by shamelessly deceiving and blackmailing displaced Aborigines, "Americans acquire entire provinces cheaply for which the richest monarchs of Europe could not pay." 39 He says that he saw such misfortunes, which are almost impossible to portray. "No matter how you look at the fate of the North American natives, you see only irreparable evil," Tocqueville sums up .40 We are talking about the years of T. I. Jackson's democracy in the United States, when the expansion of American settlers to the West and the expulsion of Indians from their ancestral lands reached their peak. General E. Jackson himself, even before his presidency, became famous for the inhumane extermination of Indians in the warriors of 1813-1814 with the Creeks and Cheyennes and 1818 with the Seminoles.

Beaumont devotes a special, carefully documented 90 - page appendix to the second volume of Maria to the history and fate of the Indians. Tocqueville and Beaumont met Tanner on their journey near Lake Superior, and later became acquainted with his "Notes". Both, each in his own book, report that Ernest de Blosseville is preparing a French edition of Tanner's Notes with his own commentary, and recommend them to the reader as a valuable primary source. Beaumont quotes Tanner in the original American edition. To the French edition of Zapisok, which Pushkin owned [41], Blosseville prefixes a long article in which he writes that he is making his translation from a copy owned by Tocqueville and marked on the title page: "Purchased from Tanner in August 1831 on the Ohio steamer. In full agreement with Beaumont and Tocqueville, Blosseville indignantly criticizes the persecution of Native American tribes in the United States, refers to the above-mentioned study of Beaumont in the appendix to " Mary "and writes that the tragedy of the Indians unfolds under the shadow of" questionable American freedom. " 42
Pushkin ends his "John Tanner" with an ironic and skeptical conclusion, closely related to the general characterization of Ameri-

37 Тосqueville A. de. Op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 13.

38 Pushkin A. S. Poly. collected works vol. 7, pp. 435, 436-437.

39 Тосqueville A. de. Op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 279.

40 Ibid., p. 301.

41 Memoires de John Tanner, ou trente annees dans les deserts de l'Amerique du Nord, traduits ... par M. Ernest de Blosseville. Vol. 1-2, p. 1835 (Modzalevsky B. L. UK. soch., N 1423).

42 Memoires de John Tanner. Vol. 1, p. XX.

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According to the Kansk reality given at the beginning of this article: "Today, Joya Tanner lives among the educated of his countrymen. He is in a dispute with his stepmother about several Negroes left to him by inheritance. He sold his curious "Notes" very profitably and will probably be a member of the Temperance Society in a few days, in short, there is hope that Tenner will eventually become a real Yankee, on which we congratulate him from a sincere heart. " 43 Pushkin gives two footnotes to the American "realities". The first, which explains what a Temperance Society is, is probably based on a more extensive explanation in the first volume of Beaumont's book 44 . Pushkin's second footnote refers to the English spelling of the word yankee, which he writes as follows: "A nickname given to Americans; its meaning is unknown to us."

As for the etymology of the word and its introduction into English in the United States, these issues are not fully clarified today. As for its content and moral coloring, they could not be a secret for Pushkin. Hamilton, in "Men and Manners in America," gives an explanation that is exceptionally sharp even against the general background of his work: "Mammon never had a more zealous servant than a true Yankee. He honors her not only with his mouth, but with all the powers of His body and spirit, with all His being. The whole world for him is a giant stock exchange, where he can surpass the wealth of his neighbor. Hucksterism fills all his thoughts, he knows no other pleasures. He moves about in life like a snail, carrying his shop or office on his back, and talks about nothing but profit and interest. " 45
It is interesting that Marx fully uses this definition, taken from Hamilton, to characterize the spirit of haggling in the sphere of bourgeois relations in general, the practical spirit of Christian peoples, as a result of which money becomes "world power" 46 . In the German edition of Hamilton, which Marx quotes, and in the French translation that Pushkin had, the English yankee is translated as "inhabitants of New England". The Russian press has repeatedly commented on this word. In particular, in the Library for Reading in 1835, it was once stated that a Yankee was "a New England American proper" and another time that a Yankee was "a mocking nickname for an American." 47
Our review of the possible sources used by Pushkin to characterize bourgeois democracy in the United States in John Tanner cannot, of course, claim to be exhaustive. Pushkin may have known other sources, both Russian and foreign, both printed and oral, which are hardly possible to take into account at the present time .48 We can't judge strictly about that either.,

43 Pushkin A. S. Poly. Collected works vol. 7, p. 469.

44 Beaumont G. Op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 353.

45 Hamilton T. Men and Manners in America. Vol. 1. Lrid. 1833, p. 213.

46 K. Marx and F. Engels Soch. T. 1, p. 409.

47 Library for Reading, 1835. vol. VIII, February, VII, p. 10, vol. IX, March, II, p. 111.

48 Two of Pushkin's personal acquaintances lived in the United States for several years at different times and wrote about their observations, although they relate to earlier periods. P. P. Svin'in, who served as secretary of the Russian Consul General in Philadelphia in 1811-1813, published on his return the book "Experience of a Picturesque Journey through North America" (St. Petersburg. 1818). The book is somewhat superficially descriptive, but even in it the Russian reader could read that "money is a deity for an American" (p. 19). P. I. Poletika, the Russian envoy to the United States in 1819-1824, was the author of the outstanding book for his time "A Look at the internal situation of the United States of America and its political relations". relations with Europe", published in London in French. On some of the questions later raised by Pushkin in John Tanner, Poletika was categorically clear. He calls the Indians " the rightful owners of the entire territory of the United States, "which is" wrested from them by force or appearance of a formal treaty." Of slavery, he writes that it is "an absolute evil" (adding: "in every civilized society",

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whether the books named here from his library were read with equal attention by Pushkin, since he did not leave any litter in the margins or any reviews. A clear sign that Pushkin was reading or, in any case, carefully looking through the book - cut sheets. The books of Beaumont and Hamilton, as well as Tanner's "Notes", are cut completely. There's even a bookmark in Beaumont's book. On the other hand, in Tocqueville, about which Pushkin wrote to Chaadaev as a read book49 , he left uncut part of the first volume (from page 45 to the end), where the author analyzes the constitution and the functioning of state bodies in the United States.

In the 1830s, Pushkin entered a period of important ideological reflections and searches, which were not destined to be completed. To a large extent, they were associated with a re-evaluation of the ideological heritage of the XVIII century, and when clarifying the historical significance and place of Pushkin's criticism of the United States in "John Tanner", this should be borne in mind. The young bourgeois republic across the ocean was the focus of the social hopes and illusions of eighteenth-century European enlighteners. They sometimes predicted a golden age for humanity there. In his well-known "Remarks on the Government and Laws of the United States of America," the outstanding political theorist of the French Enlightenment, G. B. de Mably, seriously recommends that this established bourgeois democracy avoid trade, wealth, and property inequality. In his forecasts, however, he is closer to reality and does not rule out an outcome in which money in the United States "usurps the supreme power" 50.

Despite the fact that the American war of independence gave "the first impetus to the European revolution of the eighteenth century" 51 and the bourgeois republic across the ocean long served as a free land for "millions of landless Europeans" 52, Engels famously said that the enlightenment "kingdom of reason was nothing more than an idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie" 53, and this is the kingdom of the bourgeoisie - "a caricature of the brilliant promises of the enlightenment" 54, have never been demonstrated with such stunning evidence as in the United States in the first third of the nineteenth century. If the zealots of the" old order " in Europe were triumphant over this course of events, the advanced people were deeply perplexed and alarmed. Some polemical exaggerations and exaggerated formulations of European critics of the United States did not prevent them, mostly correctly, from seeing and condemning the repulsive features in the social and political life of the overseas bourgeois republic.

which excluded the possibility of publishing his book in Russia), and points out that, according to his observations, free Negroes are virtually as disenfranchised in the United States as slaves (Apercu de la Situation Interieure des Etats-Unis d'Amerique et de leur Rapports Politiques avec l'Europe. Par un Russe. Lnd. 1826, pp. 21, 31, 32). Poletika's book is not in Pushkin's library, but he thought highly of its author and might well have been familiar with it. An extract from this book was published in Delvig's Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1830, when Pushkin took a lively part in it.

49 " Have you read Tocqueville? I am still all heated up by his book and frightened by it" (A. S. Pushkin to P. Ya. Chaadaev, October 19, 1836 (draft edition). In: Pushkin. Letters of the last years, 1834-1837, L. 1969, p. 198).

50 Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des Etats-Unis d'Amerique. Per Mr. L'Abbe de A'\ably. Amsterdam. 1784, p. 210.

51 K. Marx and F. Engels Soch. Vol. 16, p. 17.

52 Ibid., vol. 15, p. 334.

53 Ibid., Vol. 19, p. 190.

54 Ibid., p. 193.

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