The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

Romanticisms 101

structure of promotion, reward, and formal titles - which determined how a gentleman was addressed in public and what salaried positions he was allowed to pursue - remained in place, with small modifications, until the Bolsheviks abolished the Table of Ranks in 1917. Without a sense of this stratification it is difficult to grasp the dynamics of prestige, ambition, and humiliation in tsarist Russia. Its mechanisms of flattery and shame - the distinctive psychological fuel of much Russian Romantic prose - could function with grotesque precision, especially in the imperial capital. One’s sense of honor and sensitivity to insult was conditioned by one’s birth in conjunction with one’s rank.

The fourteen ranks had three parallel branches: military, civil, and court (that is, “attached to the imperial court,” “courtier”). Rank Fourteen was where one began. Any rank above Eight (after 1856, any rank above Four) bestowed hereditary nobility. Many benefited from this system; sons of the gentry and even of low-born scribes and secretaries could now work their way into the nobility. Some professions, however, had no rank assigned to them at all - such as musicians before the founding of a degree-granting conservatory in St. Petersburg in 1862 - and thus officially did not exist. One’s rank guaranteed rights (such as existed in the Russian Empire): the right to own human property, the right to be exempt from public flogging. In official documents, a person’s rank came first. When addressing a person formally it was procedurally obligatory to use titles, which were multi-syllabic, bulky, and intrusive (ranks One and Two were addressed as “Your High Excellency” [vashe vysokoprevoskhoditel'stvo], Three and Four as “Your Excellency” [vasheprevoskhoditel'stvo], Five as “Your Highly Born” [vashe vysokorodie], Six through Eight as “Your High Honor” [vashe vysokoblagorodie], etc.). Gogol gives us stretches of conversation consisting largely of a vacuous and sycophantic exchange of these formal titles. But more was involved than verbal courtesy or the currying of favor. Every branch of every rank had its required uniform, mandated down to the shape of the collar and color of the button, as well as hats, gloves, boots, weapons, the prescribed cut for facial hair, the dances one could perform at balls and the style of carriage one could drive. Petersburg was a heavily military city, with a large percentage of its adult males in uniform; many of its parks were de facto parade grounds. Visually, aurally, and behaviorally, one’s rank bestowed one’s identity.

Pushkin and honor (its reciprocity, roundedness, and balance)

Pushkin was acutely aware of the rewards and constraints of official rank. They often conflicted with two other values precious to him: professionalism as a