Alexander Palm

Alexander Ivanovich Palm
Born Александр Иванович Пальм
(1822-02-02)February 2, 1822
Krasnoslobodsk, Penza Governorate, Russian Empire
Died November 22, 1885(1885-11-22) (aged 63)
Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Occupation novelist, poet, dramatist

Alexander Ivanovich Palm (Александр Иванович Пальм, February 2 [o.s. January 21], 1822, Krasnoslobodsk, Penza Governorate, Russian Empire, - November 22 [o.s. 10], 1885, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, who also used the pseudonym P. Alminsky. A member of the Petrashevsky Circle, Palm in 1847 was arrested, spent 8 months in the Petropavlovsk Fortress, had his death sentence changed to deportation and served 7 years in the Russian Army. Among his best known works are Alexey Slobodin. The History of One Family (1874, novel) and Our Friend Neklyuzhev (1879, drama).[1]

Biography

Alexander Ivanovich Palm was born in Krasnoslobodsk, Penza region, son of a provincial state official and a serf peasant woman. As a teenager he enrolled into the Saint Petersburg military school and after the graduation in 1842 joined the Russian Guards as a junior officer. In 1843 his debut poem published by Literaturnaya Gazeta received praise from critic and playwright Fyodor Koni. In the course of the next five years more than 30 poems by Palm appeared in different Russian magazines.[1]

In 1847 Palm started to attend Mikhail Petrashevsky's 'Fridays', then joined his best friend Sergey Durov's circle. Revolutionary ideas have never attracted Palm and he was participating in the underground movement so as to be with his friends, according to biographer S.L.Kravets. During interrogations he expressed deep repentance over his own actions but refused to report on his friends. "His confession is well-written, but... he never reveals, rather tries to conceal Petrashevsky's criminal intentions," an inscription stated, made by a secret police official on Palm's personal file, dated 29 April 1849.[1]

After eight months spent in the Petropavlovsk Fortress, Palm received a death sentence, was taken to the execution place along with other members of the Circle, got pardoned and sent to the Russian army as a junior officer. After 7 years of service (in the Caucasus and the Crimea, where he took part in the Crimean War) Palm retired as an army major. In 1871, now a manager of a financial control office in Poltava, Palm embezzled 17 thousand rubles he'd taken from public funds and was sentenced to 3 years of exile. Włodzimierz Spasowicz, a renown lawyer, who defended Palm, never disputed the fact of the embezzlement but stressed the dire financial circumstances the once well-known writer had found himself in.[2]

After three years spent in Samara Governorate, Palm returned to literary activities and published numerous novels and dramas. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) he worked as a war correspondent for Novoye Vremya, in 1883 edited the weekly newspaper Teatr, for a year was the head of the Pushkin literary circle, having succeeded Alexey Pleshcheyev.[3]

Legacy

Alexander Palm's poetry, "marked by clarity of vision, sonority and technical precision," bore all the marks of Mikhail Lermontov's influence, according to biographer Kravets. Palm's best known poetic drama, The Tale of Tsar, Tsarina and Guslyar with a Cat from the Overseas (1843) was similar to Lermontov's The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov. Palm's 1849 novel Zhak Bichovkin featured a hero who, according to the author himself, "regarded himself as another Pechorin."

The centerpiece of Palm's vast prosaic legacy is the novel Alexey Slobodin. The Family History in 5 Parts which he published in Vestnik Evropy (1872, Nos. 10,12; 1873, Nos. 2, 3; 1874, Nos. 10, 11) under the moniker P.Alminsky. The novel attracted much interest because most of its heroes had real life prototypes, members of the Petrashevsky and Durov's circles (Rudkovsky as Durov, Slobodin as Fyodor Dostoyevsky).

Palm's dramas Old Landlord (1873) and Our Friend Neklyuzhev (1879), staged by the Aleksandrinsky and Maly Theaters respectively, proved to be very popular with the public. Contemporary critics dismissed them, but in retrospect Russian literary historians see Palm's plays as superior to his prose and poetry.[1]

Select bibliography

Novels

Dramas

Poetry

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Kravets, S.L. (1990). "Пальм, Александр Иванович". Russian Writers. Biobibliographical dictionary. Moscow. Ed. P.A.Nikolayev. Prosveshcheniye Publishers. Vol.2. Retrieved 2014-01-13.
  2. ↑ The Works by V.D.Spasovich. Saint Petersburg, 1913, Vol.5, Pp. 248-268.
  3. ↑ Klevensky, M. (1939). "Пальм, Александр Иванович". Literary encyclopedia in 11 Volumes. Vol. 8.P. 412. Retrieved 2014-01-13.
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