Pushkin’s Andromeda Nebula

Appendix to the quarterly journal “Successes of Etymology” for linguists and etymologists.

Kern is German for “core”.

Nuclear physics is called “Kernphysik” in contrast to the English “Nuclear physics”. In particular, the densest part of the galactic core is also called the core.

So, the poem “A.P. Kern”, which all Pushkinists attributed to Pushkin’s romance with the beautiful Anna Petrovna, is actually dedicated to the CORE OF THE GALAXY IN THE CONSTELLATION ANDROMEDA.

And the dedication should be deciphered as: “Andromeda Dust Core”, that is, the core of the galaxy, the Andromeda Nebula. Nebulae, due to the poor quality of the telescopes of that time, called “spotting tubes”, looked like spreading clouds of dust (from a multitude of stars), that is, “stardust in the constellation Andromeda”.

Anna Petrovna Kern, nee Poltoratskaya, before she was even seventeen years old, was married (sold) by her father, the leader of the nobility, to fifty-two-year-old General E.F.Kern, a rude, flighty and poorly educated soldier. It is clear that she quickly began to look for “solace on the side” (Like Tatiana Larina, who was also married (also sold) to an old and fat general – “Men bowed lower, CAUGHT the GAZE of HER EYES,”), fortunately, she was considered a beauty. Although, judging by the portrait I’ve seen, she looks more like an anemic, dystrophic nun.

If you read the text of the poem carefully and without a pre-set dogmatic preset, then it is actually dedicated to the telescope, which was given to him by his noble uncle during his lyceum years, who, thanks to his “connections”, arranged for the young Pushkin to attend the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. And his uncle gave him a telescope, because Pushkin asked him about it, he was interested in cosmography (that was what astronomy was called then). In fact, his African sexuality had awakened early, and he needed the telescope for a slightly different “fun.”

Lyceum folklore about Pushkin.

Big Geno, million bonmo,

He’ll be smart without intent,

And our Frenchman praises his taste.

And swears four letter words, content.

He is a choir of stars in the dark sky,

Cosmographically despised,

Through his telescope with a languid feeling,

He only looked at the windows of the young ladies.

Big Zheno is the nickname of Pushchin

The Frenchman – Pushkin

In Mikhailovsky, he also took to looking out the windows of the house of Osipova, a neighboring landowner with her younger daughters. But, according to the denunciation of the local captain, who carried out secret supervision, the telescope was taken away from him for a while.

In EXILED GLOOM and DARK LOCATION
My quiet days meandered on,
The thrill of awe and inspiration
And life, and tears, and love, were gone.

Pushkin was never in any kind of prison! But it was dark, because it looked best at night through lighted windows.

There were tears when he looked into the eyepiece of the telescope for a long time!

And the DIVINE beauty of the galaxy was there, and it’s ridiculous to compare some beautiful female with a deity when the sensations are not holy at all spinning in my head and lower…

And it was TAKEN AWAY!!!

But then they returned:

My soul awoke from inanition,
When I encountered you anew, (Andromeda Nebula)
And like a fleeting apparition,
Like beauty’s spirit, past you flew.

(Translation of Pushkin verse by Walter Arndt)

And, indeed, compare Anna Petrovna’s puffy pale face with the powerful beauty of the galaxy. Which, of course, was a “fleeting vision,” because the Earth was rotating, and Pushkin did not have a special clockwork mechanism that turned the telescope after the observed object!

So, the summary:

The famous poem is dedicated not to the beauty of Kern, but to the core of a beautiful galaxy in the constellation Andromeda.

If I’m wrong, let my seniors correct me.

30 VIII 2025