In these works, we see a transition in the way Russians perceive nature and their associations with it. Rather than nature as subsistence in the forest, an element to be combatted or a mother figure that both gives and takes, here the speakers and narrators remove themselves from Russia and find the kinder pastures elsewhere are more able to mirror their feelings and passions. But ever present in Russian works is the patriotism to the mother country, and this presents itself in the sadness that the narrators and speakers feel when separated from their country. In “Farewell to Russia,” this sadness of departing is tempered by the irritation of the speaker at the controlling state Russia has turned into. This distinction is clear as the speaker glories in his new freedom in Caucasus, “Far from slanderers and tsars, / Far from ever-spying eyes” (Lermontov, 76). While the speaker in this poem criticizes the government and the military (who support the government), he does not seem to criticize the land itself or the common peasant (unless they fit the category of “unwashed”—I personally took that to mean unclean in a moral way). Yet it is not until the speaker is exiled that he is able to find the peace equal to that in the skies above Caucasus.

Pushkin speaks of his love without naming its object. Yet given the speakers location in Georgia, in facing a foreign landscape, it is logical to connect his love not solely to a singular person, but rather his home of Russia. The river Aragva also acts to mirror the speaker’s emotions and is “murmurs” in an endless way, smoothing the river bed as the emotions wash over the speaker and slowly fade to an ever-present but almost unnoticeable susurrus. When the speaker laments, “For thus my heart must burn and love—because it’s true / That not to love—it knows no way,” his words are applicable to the love for which there is no tangible reason that most everyone feels for their home (Pushkin, 140). Yet this line also speaks to the oft felt love that follows the loss of that belatedly loved item. These poems and “Caucasus” are all moments when the speaker or narrator leaves his home and in travelling, finds that that which he has left behind holds an unexpected sway over the speaker/narrator.