Experts Test Blood Stains in Search of Pushkin
By Irina Titova
Special to The St. Petersburg Times
Staff at the Pushkin Apartment Museum in St. Petersburg expect a historical sensation if a scientific analysis proves that the museum’s sofa is the one on which the famed 19th-century Russian poet and author died in 1837. Alexander Pushkin died in St. Petersburg on Feb. 10, 1837, at the age of 37, as the result of a duel with the French-born Georges Dantes. Pushkin was shot in the stomach and died two days later at his home on the river Moika. The results of the preliminary tests have shown that the blood traces found on the sofa belonged to a man and were left many years ago, said Yury Molin, deputy head of the Leningrad Oblast Legal and Medical Analysis Bureau which carried out the analysis. The experts have also established that the blood belonged to either the second or fourth group, according to the Russian system. The results of the analysis were announced at a meeting held at the museum on Monday. The legal and medical experts took 27 swabs from the sofa, including one blood sample, Molin said. Molin said the other aim of the analysis was to establish whether or not the medical treatment given to Pushkin at his home was appropriate and whether he would have survived had he been taken to hospital. Molin said that in order to prove that the blood from the sofa belonged to Pushkin, they would need to test a blood sample from the waistcoat that he was wearing when he was wounded during the duel. An analysis of this kind will take some time, Molin said, adding that fibers from the garment have already been taken for analysis. Until now, the museum’s experts have assumed that the traces of blood left on the sofa were those of Pushkin. The provenance of the sofa is also a corroborating factor, said Galina Sedova, the museum’s curator. The leather sofa has been on display in Pushkin’s study for over 70 years. Guides giving tours around the museum would invariably say that Pushkin died on it, though some of the museum’s staff have expressed doubts as to whether or not it was the actual sofa on which the poet passed away. The museum received the sofa from the State Hermitage Museum in 1937. Prior to that, it had belonged to the Filosofov family, who had received it as a gift from the wife of Pushkin’s youngest son, Grigory. Pushkin is considered to be one of Russia’s greatest poets, and something of a national hero. The author’s rich language, ingenious rhymes and liberal politics awed not only his contemporaries but following generations, too. Pushkin’s epic poems such as “Yevgeny Onegin,” “The Bronze Horseman” and “Boris Godunov,” as well as his prose and poetic fairy tales, have become much-loved classics of Russian literature. An eternal romantic, Pushkin was also known for having a number of love affairs, many of which inspired his striking love poetry. His wife Natalya Goncharova, with whom he had four children, was reputed to be one of the most beautiful young women in Moscow and had many admirers. Pushkin challenged Dantes to a duel after the latter’s attentions toward the poet’s wife became the subject of public rumor. The Frenchman was also wounded in the duel, but made a full recovery.
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