Russian author who has often been considered his counry's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin wrote some 800 lyrics with a dozen narrative poems. In his works Pushkin blended Old Slavonic with vernacular Russian into a rich, melodic language.

Pushkin was born in Moskow into an aristocratic family. In his childhood the future poet was entrusted to nursemaids, French tutors and governesses. He learned Russian from household serfs and nanny, Arina Rodionovna.

While attending the Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo (1811-1817) he began writing his first major work, Ruslan and Ludmila (1820), a kind of fairy story in verse. In 1817 he accepted a post in the foreign office at St. Petersburg and became associated with members of a radical movement, who participated later in the the Decembrist uprising in 1825. In May 1820 Pushkin was banished from the town because of his political poems. He was transferred south to Ekaterinoslav. During this time Pushkin also discovered the poetry of Lord Byron. He was then moved to Kishinev, and in the summer of 1823 to Odessa.

Although living in exile in different parts of Russia Pushkin continued to write poems, rising gradually as the leader of Romantic movement. In 1823 he started his central masterpiece, the novel in verse Eugene Onegin, which appeared in 1833. His great historical tragedy, Boris Godunov, was published in 1831.

Pushkin returned north for two further years of exile at his parent's estate of Mikhailovskoe in 1824 and two years later he was released.

When the new czar, Nicholas I allowed Pushkin to return to Moscow he abandoned openly revolutionary sentiments. In 1829 he made a four-month visit to Transcaucasia, witnessing the action with Russian Army against the Turks. In 1830 he visited another family estate, Boldino, and was stranded by cholera for three months. This was also a very productive literary period. He wrote a group of plays, among them The Avaricious Knight, Mozart and Salieri, The Stone Guest, and The Feast During the Plague. In 1833 Pushkin travelled east to the Urals for historical research.

In 1834 Pushkin received an appointment as a functionary at the court, but his minor status was considered humiliation. Pushkin's debts were mounting and he was worried about his wife's possible infidelity.

In his last years Pushkin started to write historical work of Peter the Great, which was left unfinished. In 1829 he fell in love with 16-year-old Natalya Nikolayevna, Goncharova, but the marriage (1831) was unhappy and led to his early death. A gossip of an affair between Baron Georges d'Anthès and his wife started to spread and Pushkin died in a duel on February 10 (New Style), 1837, when he was defending his wife's honour with her brother-in-law. He was buried in the monastery near Mikhailovskoye.

As an essayist Pushkin was also prolific but his most of his writings remained in draft form and over half were published posthumously due to repressive censorship. Chiefly Pushkin concentrated on literature and history. He saw that overwhelming use of French by the upper class delayed the progress of Russian literature, shifted the responsibility of Decembrist Rebellion onto foreign influences, and argued against corporal punishment in teaching. He was also fascinated by democratic republicanism but perceived the tendency to idealize both the natural state of life as exemplified in the works of James Fenimore Cooper and Chateaubriand, and the United States, as shown in his essay John Tanner (1836).

Evgenii Onegin (1833, written 1823-31) - novel in verse. Evgenii Onegin retires to country on inheriting his uncle's estate. He befriends Vladimir Lenskii, who is in love with a local girl, Olga Larina. Her eleder sister Tatiana falls in love with Onegin, but he rejects Tatiana's love. At a party Onegin insults Olga, and Lenskii challenges him to a duel, and is shot dead. Three years later Onegin meets Tatiana, who is married to a prince. He declares his love to her, but she knows how empty his charactes is, and its is her turn to reject him. - - See: Vladimir Nabokov's commentary and translation of Alexandr Pushkin' 'Eugene Onegin' (4 vol), 1964

For further reading: Puskin by D.S. Mirsky (1926); Pushkin by Ernest Simmons (1964); Pushkin by David Magarshack (1967); Alexander Pushkin by Walter Vickery (1970); Russiam Views of Pushkin, ed. by D. Richards (1976); Alexandr Pushkin: A Critical Study by A.D.P. Briggs (1983); Pushkin's Prose by Abram Lezhnev (1983); Alexander Pushkin, ed. by Harold Bloom (1987); Russian Views of Pushkin's 'Eugene Onegin*, ed. by Sona Stephanie Sandler (1989); Eugene Onegin by A.D.P. Briggs (1992); Pushkin by Robin Edmonds (1994); Pushkin by Iurii Lotman (1995); Pushkin Poems by J.Thomas Shaw (1996); Socialö Functions of Literature: Alexander Pushkin and Russian Culture by Paul Debreczeny (1997)

SEE ALSO: Nikolay Gogol, Prosper Merimée

NOTE: The Complete text in Russian of Secret Journal 1836-1837 (Tainiye zapiski) by A.S. Pushkin, translated into 16 languages and banned in Russia, as well as excerpts from other books: M.I.P. Company, The Publisher of Controversial Russian Literature. - Mikhail Armalinsky's article. - Pushkin's books in Moskow at Knizhnaia kompania Vosok-Zapad, ask for Galina Karochina, tel. 333-6546, fax 333-9013, e-mail: books@mosinfo.ru. - M.I.P Company, e-mail: mp@mipco.com

Selected works:

• RUSLAN I LJUDMILA, 1820 - Ruslan and Liudmila
• KAVKAZSKY PLENNIK, 1820-21 - Prisoner of the Caucasus
• BRATYA RAZBOYNIKI, 1821-22 - The Robber Brothers
• BAKHCHISARAYSKY FONTAN, 1823 - The Fountain of Bakhchisary
• TSYGANY, 1824 - The Gypsies
• ARAP PETRA VELIKOGO, 1827 - The Negro of Peter the Great
• GRAF NULIN, 1828 - Count Nulin
• POLTAVA, 1829 - Poltava
• BORIS GODUNOV, 1831 - suom. - basis for Modest Musorgsky's opera
• MOTSART I SALYERI, 1831 - Mozart and Salieri
• POVESTI POKOYNOGO IVANA PETROVICHA BELKINA, 1831 - Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin
• MEDNYI VSADNIK, 1833
• DOMIK V KOLOMNE, 1833 - A Small House in Kolomna
• ISTORIIA PUGACHEVA, 1833
• YEVGENY ONEGIN, 1833 - Eugene Onegin - Jevgeni Onegin - basis for Tchaikovsky's opera of the same name
• PIKOVAYA DAMA, 1834 - The Queen of Spades - Patarouva - later made into an opera by Tchaikovsky - film 1948, dir. by Thorold Dickinson
• ISTORIYA PUGACHOVA, 1834 - A History of Pugachov
• YEGIPETSKIYE NOCHI, 1835 - Egyptian Nights
• KAPITANSKAYA DOCHKA, 1836 - The Captain's Daughter
• PUTESHESTVIE V ARZRUM, 1836 - A Journey to Arzrum
• MEDNYi VSADNIK, 1837 - The Bronze Horseman
• KAMENNY GOST, 1839 - The Stone Guest
• ISTORIYA SELA GORYUKHINA, 1837 - The History of the Village of Goryukhino
• DUBROVSKY, 1841 (unfinished)
• THE POEMS, PROSE AND PLAYS OF PUSHKIN, 1936
• POLNOE SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1937-49 (17 vols.)
• POLNOE SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1949 (19 vols.)
• THE LETTERS OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, 1963 (3 vols.)
• SELECTED VERSE WITH INTRADUCTION AND PROSE TRANSLATIONS, 1964
• COMPLETE PROSE TALES OF ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH PUSHKIN, 1967
• PUSHKIN ON LITERATURE, 1971
• PUSHKIN THREEFOLD, 1972
• VOMPLETE PROSE FICTION, 1983
• EPIGRAMS AND SATIRICAL VERSE, 1984
• COLLECTED NARRATIVE AND LYRICAL POETRY, 1984
• DNEVNIKI. ZAPISKI, 1995
• THE QUEEN OF SPADES AND OTHER STORIES, 1997