№ 3, 2024. “My spirit fights for better rights…”

PIR Quotes

“My spirit fights for better rights…“

On June 6, Pushkin Day, also known as the Russian Language Day, commemorating the great writer and poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s birthday is celebrated. Notably, 2024 is his anniversary, which makes the celebration even more significant and valuable.

In this regard, we are pleased to share that very soon, PIR Center will hold the International Timerbaev Debates in the frames of the XXIII International School on Global Security, which will take place from June 22 to June 30 in Zvenigorod, near the Zakharovo village, which is Pushkin’s childhood motherland. The topic of the debates was indeed raised in one of Pushkin’s poems – “Iz Pindemonte” (1836). We invite our readers to immerse in art and recall this poem.

“I value little those much-vaunted rights
that have for some the lure of dizzy heights;
I do not fret because the gods refuse
to let me wrangle over revenues,
or thwart the wars of kings; and ‘tis to me
of no concern whether the press be free
to dupe poor oafs or whether censors cramp
the current fancies of some scribbling scamp.
These things are words, words, words. My spirit fights
for deeper Liberty, for better rights.

Whom shall we serve – the people or the State?
The poet does not care – so let them wait.
To give account to none, to be one’s own
vassal and liege, to please oneself alone,
to bend neither one’s neck nor inner schemes
nor conscience for obtaining that which seems
power but is a flunkey’s coat; to stroll
in one’s own wake, admiring the divine
beauties of Nature and to feel one’s soul
melt in the glow of man’s inspired design
– this is the blessing, these are rights!”

Alexander Pushkin
“Iz Pindemonte,” 1836

Key words: Pushkin; Politics

RUF

F4/SOR – 24/06/05