Abstract
This study uses close reading of clothing imagery to unlock a system by which Pushkin was able to enshroud his political messages in layers of apparel and textual patterning that would have been accessible to his peers. Despite Pushkin's profound “genre consciousness,” commonalities across texts suggest that each item of apparel carries a particular semiotic “charge,” which acts similarly to repeating lexical items or rhyming patterns. Though dress is closely related to the themes of social status and mobility, which occupied Pushkin during the final decade of his life, scholars have been reluctant to attribute import to the clothing items he selected for his heroes, and especially for his heroines. I will show that, for characters of both genders, certain articles of clothing allude to Pushkin's mixed feelings about the social changes initiated by Peter's reforms as well as his negative interpretation of Catherine the Great's influence on Russian society.