The Queen of Spades (story)
- The Queen of Spades (story)
"The Queen of Spades" ( _ru. Пиковая дама; Pikovaya dama) is an acclaimed short story by Alexander Pushkin about human avariciousness. Pushkin wrote the story in autumn 1833 in Boldino and it was first published in literary magazine "Biblioteka dlya chteniya" in 1834. It was turned into the opera The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky.
Plot summary
Pushkin's story tells of the Russianized German card player, Hermann--an engineer in the army in Russia--who becomes obsessed with the secret of three consecutive winning cards after hearing a story about an old countess' winnings years prior. His obsession drives him to manipulate the countess' ward, Lizaveta Ivanovna, into letting him into their home. There, in his desperation to obtain the secret of the three cards, Hermann accosts the countess. She first tells him that that story was a joke. Unwilling to believe her, Hermann's tactics escalate from begging to threatening the 87 year old countess; frightening her to death. During a visit to the countess' funeral, Hermann is terrified to see the countess open her eyes in the coffin and look at him. He runs back to his flat, only to be visited by the ghost of the countess later that night. The ghost names the secret three cards, the rules of the bet and then orders him to marry Liza. Hermann takes his entire savings to a card game, where the first two cards (named by countess) win him a fortune. Hermann thinks he will win the last game as well because he plays the ace. However, Hermann somehow ends up playing the Queen of Spades, rather than the ace, and therefore loses. He ends up committed to room number 17 at an asylum, where "he doesn't answer any questions and he keeps muttering with extraordinary rapidity, 'Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!'"
External links
* [http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/06prose/01prose/0866.htm?start=0&length=all "Пиковая дама"] avaialble at "Russian Virtual Library" ru icon
* [http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/books/pushk/spads/spads.html "The Queen of Spades"] , transl. by Natalie Duddington
Wikimedia Foundation.
2010.
Look at other dictionaries:
The Queen of Spades (opera) — The Queen of Spades ( ru. Пиковая дама, Pikovaya dama ) is an opera, Opus 68, in 3 acts, 7 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer s brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by the poet … Wikipedia
The Queen of Spades (1982 film) — Infobox Film name = The Queen of Spades imdb id = 0084498 director = Igor Maslennikov writer = Aleksandr Pushkin Alexander Shlepyanov starring = Viktor Proskurin Alla Demidova Innokenty Smoktunovsky producer = music = Dmytro Bortniansky… … Wikipedia
The Queen of Spades (1960 film) — Infobox Film name = The Queen of Spades imdb id = 0054183 director = Roman Tikhomirov writer = Aleksandr Pushkin Roman Tikhomirov starring = Oleg Strizhenov producer = music = Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky cinematography = Lenfilm distributor =… … Wikipedia
The Queen of Spades (1916 film) — Infobox Film name = The Queen of Spades imdb id = 0007183 director = Yakov Protazanov writer = Aleksandr Pushkin Yakov Protazanov Fyodor Otsep starring = Ivan Mozzhukhin producer = music = cinematography = Yevgeni Slavinsky distributor = released … Wikipedia
The Queen of Spades (1949 film) — Infobox Film name = The Queen of Spades image size = caption = director = Thorold Dickinson producer = Anatole de Grunwald writer = Alexander Pushkin (story) Rodney Ackland Arthur Boys narrator = starring = Anton Walbrook Edith Evans Yvonne… … Wikipedia
Queen of Spades — may refer to: * alternate name of the card game Old Maid, in which that particular playing card plays an important role; * Queen of Spades , a song on Pieces of Eight (album) by Styx; * Queen (playing card) in the spade suit; * The Queen of… … Wikipedia
Queen (playing card) — The queen is a playing card with a picture of a queen on it. The usual rank of a queen is as if it were 12 (that is, between the king and the jack).In the standard English playing card deck, the Queen and the other face cards represent no one in… … Wikipedia
The opera corpus — is a list of nearly 2,500 works by more than 775 individual opera composers. Some of the works listed below are still being performed today but many are not. The principal works of the major composers are given as well as those of historical… … Wikipedia
The Five — For other uses, see 5 (disambiguation). The Five Mily Balakirev César Cui Modest Mussorgsky Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov Alexander Borodin … Wikipedia
The Blizzard — For other uses, see Blizzard (disambiguation). The Blizzard (or The Snow Storm) (Russian: Метель, Metyel) is the second of five short stories that constitute The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin by Aleksandr Pushkin, and was later made… … Wikipedia
