The Shot by Alexander Pushkin
The Russians are very complex, sometimes warm hearted, other times cruel, extraordinarily brave- I think of War and Peace now, weak- some characters in The Idiot and other Russian masterpieces…they can be majestic like Tolstoy, Turgenev and petty and dictatorial like Stalin and Putin.
There is love and hate in my heart: I love many Russian books, achievements and even dogs- I own five Russian noble hounds. But I watch the news and I see how they want to grab the Crimea, then Eastern Ukraine, after they had beaten Georgia and occupied a third of it.
The Soviets and communism are the main reason a few generations of Eastern Europeans, including the one writing here, have lost opportunities, years of their lives and loved ones.
Coming back to “The Shot”, the mysterious Russian soul is shown here. The portrayal of an officer is at the heart of many a Russian story and so it is here.
The main character, Silvio is an excellent shot, but when the occasion comes up, he avoids fighting a duel. This is because he holds a grudge and wants to pay back that debt. I will not go into details which might spoil the pleasure for an eventual reader of this review.
There is drinking – “champagne flows like water”
The atmosphere of this story recalls some of the Russian films, “Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano „in particular, even if it would be more accurate to say it is the other way around, the film being an adaptation of one of the classic stories.
What strikes me often is the fact that Russian characters at least, I do not know about the real ones, can be romantic, loving and kind and then turn into furious bullies, criminals. If we refer to history, they killed, their soviet leaders- millions of their own people by violence, starvation, execution and often torture. I guess this is the human nature, but here the extremes puzzle me.