Reconstructing History: Pushkin, Poltava, and Imperial Nation-Building

This article aims to analyze Alexander Pushkin's narrative poem Poltava (1828–29) as an attempt of literary reconstruction of history within the context of a broad public debate about Russia's past and its implications for the politics of the day. It will show how Pushkin used the Battle of Poltava as a topic that allowed him to make a public statement about Russia's imperial development and nation-building, which he connected to the concept of narodnost'. The discussion of historical events and the analysis of Pushkin's interpretation of the past will be equally important in order to examine Poltava as an unusual piece of literature with considerable influence on posterity.