Ivan Petrovich Belkin was born of honourable and noble parents in the year 1798, in the village of Goryukhino. His late father, Second-Major Pyotr Ivanovich Belkin, was married to one Pelageya Gavrilovna, nee Trafilin. He was not rich, but was abstemious in his habits and very able in managing his business affairs.
This collection of tales begins with a section titled “From the Editor” in which the actual author, Pushkin, takes on the fictional persona of the manager of the literary estate of a fictional author named Belkin. Thus, the collection is situated as a kind of prototype of postmodern meta-fiction in which the actual authorship of the stories contained within is itself part of the creative process and the ultimate artistic result. (A popular modern-day analogue would be The Princess Bride in which actual author William Goldman is a character within the narrative who is ostensibly editing an original text by author S. Morgenstern who, of course, does not actually exist. Although, it must be pointed out that Goldman’s work actually is an example of postmodernism that takes the issue of reality to places that Pushkin does not even attempt here.)
Who has not cursed postmasters, who has never quarreled with them? Who, in a moment of rage, has not demanded from them that fatal book in order to record in it futile complaints of heavy-handedness, rudeness and inefficiency? Who does not look upon them as the scum of the earth…
While pretty much every American reader can identify with the general attitude expressed here toward postmasters, it is important to distinguish the difference between the American concept and the Russian concept. A popular alternative title for this story is “The Station Master” but even that, though hinting, does not fully convey the full context of this humorous opening section that introduces the story. In order to fully appreciate the humor of the story, it is necessary to understand that Russia has always—whether under the rules of the Tsars or the Soviet Union—been a nation unusually dependent upon a rigidly hierarchical bureaucracy. This particular story takes place before the communist revolution and focuses on Tsarist Table of Ranks which was subsequently abolished by Lenin following the revolution. Established by Peter the Great, the Table of Ranks was a bureaucratic hierarchy of government and military positions listed according to rank. And at the very bottom of this list—holding the least power and, subsequently, the least respect among the people—was the Collegiate Registrar. Otherwise known as the postmaster. Or, of course, station master.
The room was full of corpses. The moon shone through the windows and illuminated their yellow and blue faces, sunken mouths, dim, half-closed eyes and prominent noses. To his horror Adrian recognized them as people he himself had buried and in the guest who had entered with him the brigadier who had been buried in the pouring rain. All of them, ladies and gentlemen, surrounded the undertaker with bows and greetings, except for one poor devil recently buried free of charge and who, ashamed of his rags and feeling shy, dared not approach him but stayed meekly in one corner.
This tale differs from the others in being—or seeming to be for a time, at least—a bit more wildly imaginative and outside the realm of reality. This section of the tale verges into the genre of horror as it appears that the “customers” of the title character have come back to haunt him. Ultimately, it is revealed to have been just a dream, but that explanation is really not even necessary. There is hidden in this excerpt one tiny little almost offhand remark in the narration that serves to explain how it is that the alleged author, Mr. Belkin, happened to write his tales. You will notice that the narrator here makes a direct address to readers at one point when he references his readership as “ladies and gentlemen.”
One of the conceits of the narrative structure that Pushkin creates to instill the idea that these stories are the work of another author entirely is the brief mention in that note from the editor that each of the stories were originally related to Belkin by an original source. And so, in this case, the narrator who is telling the story of the undertaker’s horrific dream of reanimated corpses is identified in that prefatory material as a shop assistant known only by the initials B.V. (“The Postmaster” originated with a bureaucrat ranking five orders of importance above postmaster identified only as A.G.N. which seems to be pretty important contextual information to have when reading the story.)
