REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ORIENT IN A.S. PUSHKIN’S POEM “THE PRISONER OF THE CAUCASUS”

Abstract

This paper will analyze how A. S. Pushkin's 1822 poem The Prisoner of the Caucasus reflects an imperialist perspective through its romantic representations of the Orient (Caucasus). Pushkin's poem addresses an identity question centered on the opposition between the East (represented by the Caucasus) and the West (represented by the Russian Empire). We will undertake the analysis based on the concept of imaginative geography, as developed by Edward Said in his study,
Orientalism. In his poem, Pushkin unflinchingly explores the theme of freedom in a plot based on the antithesis between civilization and nature, representative of Romantic ideology. Pushkin uses this artistic device to critically re-evaluate the romantic stereotype of freedom accessible to the individual through escape from society and a return to untouched nature. In the poem's epilogue, Pushkin unequivocally returns to an eighteenth-century Enlightenment worldview that glorifies civilization and the empire over nature and savagery. The Orient is represented in the poem to underscore two key points: the European, Western identity of Russian culture and the domination of the Russian Empire over the Caucasus.