Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, I am so excited!!!!!!
I just found a shoujo manga about the Russian poet Pushkin!!! And his Amazing Love Story with Natalia. BY CHIHO FREAKIN' SAITO. I have always joked that Pushkin makes a great romantic subject, what with his genius, his numerous political exiles and even more numerous romantic dalliances, his marriage to the most beautiful woman in Moscow and his death in a duel over said woman, but it took the Japanese to really go that one step further and make it into a manga.
God I love Japan. They have made manga/anime adaptations of EVERYTHING. Pushkin now joins Oscar Wilde and David Bowie as "men I love that the Japanese have made shoujo manga about." Oh God, does this mean there is a shoujo manga of Neil Gaiman somewhere out there as well?!!! It must. I bet there is a manga about him and Amanda Palmer being drawn as we speak. Oh God.
Anyway! You can read this manga in English translation online!
http://manga.animea.net/bronze-no-tenshi-chapter-1-page-1.html
It's called BRONZE ANGEL. Because Pushkin was part-black, you know. OHMYGOD. SO EXCITED.
If they DID make a manga of it, I am glad they made him brown. It's not like it's gonna be accurate anyway, and that's an aesthetic choice that pleases me. They straightened his hair though. lololol.
Pushkin:
Natalia:
Other things that please me:
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BENKENDORF is in it. HAHAHA omg. The chief of Russian secret police. Oh goodness. In a shoujo manga. But also, good research, lady! Everything said on this page is true. This makes me happy--Chiho Saito seems to know what she's talking about, so I'm much more ok with her changing whatever else around knowing she must be familiar with the events as they did in fact occur.
Pushkin being termed a heart-breaker and playboy. YES.
The "black monkey" thing is unfortunate but also quite accurate. :-/ So, um, props to Chiho Saito for also getting her research right on the slurs used against him? (Although no one would have said it at a ball, but I don't care.)
OMG. He meets Natalia Cinderella-style, and DEMANDS TO SEE HER FOOT. Oh my god that is AMAZING. I thought I was the only one to make fun of him for his foot fetish. Chiho Saito I LOVE YOU. And the fact that it takes either a good biography or a pretty thorough familiarity with his poetry to know that he had a thing for feet, and I LOVE that she'd use that. Without knowing of his predilection there, this just seems cliche, but knowing it, it's.... ahhhhhh. Love.
And he's pushy! And kinda arrogant and rakish! YESSssssssss.
Ohhhh, are we gonna have a whole bunch of exoticizing Orientalism on the subject of Pushkin's ancestry? YOU BETCHA. It's probably fairly accurate though, and appropriate payback, since it's not like Pushkin didn't indulge in a good bit of classic Romantic-era Orientalism himself.
(I gotta say, one of the stranger byproducts of me growing up in Russia is that I managed to experience a fair amount of Orientalizing a child, and I'm WHITE. But I have dark hair and really dark eyes, and in Russia that apparently makes you exotic. I have been called a gypsy or an Indian or a Muslim as far back as I can remember by various adults--mostly a gypsy. It has always been a complimentary thing, but still kind of bizarre. And from all the commenting done on my eyes, you'd think people had never seen black eyes before. People would stop me on the street to remark how black my eyes were and make stupid wisecracks about it. Anyway, I can't tell if this makes me like this whole "bronze skin oooooooh" motif in the manga, or just be all the more annoyed with it. A little of both.)
Sometime later I make make a post about how I've kinda had the hots for Pushkin ever since I was a child (my reaction to all the talk of how ugly he was considered/thought himself to be was always "what? but he's really very handsome!"), which is possibly why I find the idea of a shoujo manga about him so giddy-making.
God I love Japan. They have made manga/anime adaptations of EVERYTHING. Pushkin now joins Oscar Wilde and David Bowie as "men I love that the Japanese have made shoujo manga about." Oh God, does this mean there is a shoujo manga of Neil Gaiman somewhere out there as well?!!! It must. I bet there is a manga about him and Amanda Palmer being drawn as we speak. Oh God.
Anyway! You can read this manga in English translation online!
http://manga.animea.net/bronze-no-tenshi-chapter-1-page-1.html
It's called BRONZE ANGEL. Because Pushkin was part-black, you know. OHMYGOD. SO EXCITED.
If they DID make a manga of it, I am glad they made him brown. It's not like it's gonna be accurate anyway, and that's an aesthetic choice that pleases me. They straightened his hair though. lololol.
Pushkin:
Natalia:
Other things that please me:
BENKENDORF is in it. HAHAHA omg. The chief of Russian secret police. Oh goodness. In a shoujo manga. But also, good research, lady! Everything said on this page is true. This makes me happy--Chiho Saito seems to know what she's talking about, so I'm much more ok with her changing whatever else around knowing she must be familiar with the events as they did in fact occur.
Pushkin being termed a heart-breaker and playboy. YES.
The "black monkey" thing is unfortunate but also quite accurate. :-/ So, um, props to Chiho Saito for also getting her research right on the slurs used against him? (Although no one would have said it at a ball, but I don't care.)
OMG. He meets Natalia Cinderella-style, and DEMANDS TO SEE HER FOOT. Oh my god that is AMAZING. I thought I was the only one to make fun of him for his foot fetish. Chiho Saito I LOVE YOU. And the fact that it takes either a good biography or a pretty thorough familiarity with his poetry to know that he had a thing for feet, and I LOVE that she'd use that. Without knowing of his predilection there, this just seems cliche, but knowing it, it's.... ahhhhhh. Love.
And he's pushy! And kinda arrogant and rakish! YESSssssssss.
Ohhhh, are we gonna have a whole bunch of exoticizing Orientalism on the subject of Pushkin's ancestry? YOU BETCHA. It's probably fairly accurate though, and appropriate payback, since it's not like Pushkin didn't indulge in a good bit of classic Romantic-era Orientalism himself.
(I gotta say, one of the stranger byproducts of me growing up in Russia is that I managed to experience a fair amount of Orientalizing a child, and I'm WHITE. But I have dark hair and really dark eyes, and in Russia that apparently makes you exotic. I have been called a gypsy or an Indian or a Muslim as far back as I can remember by various adults--mostly a gypsy. It has always been a complimentary thing, but still kind of bizarre. And from all the commenting done on my eyes, you'd think people had never seen black eyes before. People would stop me on the street to remark how black my eyes were and make stupid wisecracks about it. Anyway, I can't tell if this makes me like this whole "bronze skin oooooooh" motif in the manga, or just be all the more annoyed with it. A little of both.)
Sometime later I make make a post about how I've kinda had the hots for Pushkin ever since I was a child (my reaction to all the talk of how ugly he was considered/thought himself to be was always "what? but he's really very handsome!"), which is possibly why I find the idea of a shoujo manga about him so giddy-making.