Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to an old noble family that traced its ancestry back to the 12th century. One of his maternal great-grandfathers was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a nobleman and military general of African origin. Gannibal had been kidnapped from his homeland by the Ottomans and taken to Constantinople as a gift for the Ottoman Sultan. He was later transferred to Russia as a gift for Peter the Great. The Emperor freed him and raised him in the court household as his godson. Later research established that Gannibal was born in Central Africa, in an area bordering Lake Chad in modern-day Cameroon. After education in France as a military engineer, he became governor of Reval and eventually Général en Chief. This third most senior army rank put him in charge of building sea forts and canals in Russia.
Pushkin spoke mostly French until the age of ten. He became acquainted with the Russian language through communication with household serfs and his nanny, Arina Rodionovna. He published his first poem at the age of fifteen. When he finished school, he graduated from the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg. His talent was already widely recognized on the Russian literary scene upon graduation. At the Lyceum, he was a student of David Mara, known in Russia as a younger brother of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. In 1820, he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Ludmila, with much controversy about its subject and style. Upon graduation, Pushkin recited his controversial poem Ode to Liberty, one of several that led to his exile by Emperor Alexander I.
Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. That angered the government and led to his transfer from the capital in May 1820. He went to the Caucasus and to Crimea and then to Kamianka and Chișinău in Bessarabia. He joined the Filiki Eteria, a secret organization whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule in Greece. Authorities summoned Pushkin to Moscow after his poem Ode to Liberty was found among the belongings of the rebels from the Decembrist Uprising in 1825. Many of the Decembrists were his friends and fellow writers. The emperor retained strict control of everything Pushkin published and he was banned from travelling at will. After meeting Emperor Nicholas I, Pushkin obtained his release from exile and began to work as the emperor's Titular Counsel of the National Archives.
In Mikhailovskoye, in 1825, Pushkin wrote what would become his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. He could not gain permission to publish it until five years later. The original and uncensored version of the drama was not staged until 2007. His grand opus novel in verse Eugene Onegin was serialized between 1825 and 1832. Critics consider many of his works masterpieces, such as the poem The Bronze Horseman and the drama The Stone Guest. Pushkin himself preferred his verse novel Eugene Onegin, which he wrote over the course of his life. It is a work of such complexity that translator Vladimir Nabokov needed two full volumes of material to fully render its meaning into English. Pushkin also wrote The Queen of Spades, a short story frequently anthologized in English translation.
By the autumn of 1836, Pushkin was falling into greater and greater debt and faced scandalous rumours that his wife was having a love affair. On the 4th of November, he sent a challenge to a duel to Georges d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern. The pistol duel with d'Anthès took place on the 27th of January 1837 at the Black River. D'Anthès fired first, critically wounding Pushkin; the bullet entered at his hip and penetrated his abdomen. Two days later, at 2:45 pm on the 29th of January, Pushkin died of peritonitis. At his wife's request he was put in the coffin in evening dress, not in chamber-cadet uniform. He was buried in the grounds of Svyatogorsky monastery in present-day Pushkinskiye Gory near Pskov beside his mother. His last home is now a museum.
Pushkin's works provided fertile ground for Russian composers. Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila is the earliest important Pushkin-inspired opera. Tchaikovsky's operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades became perhaps better known outside of Russia than Pushkin's own works of the same name. Mussorgsky's monumental Boris Godunov ranks as one of the very finest and most original of Russian operas. Other Russian operas based on Pushkin include Dargomyzhsky's Rusalka and Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri. Additionally, ballets and cantatas, as well as innumerable songs, have been set to Pushkin's verse. A minor planet, 2208 Pushkin, discovered in 1977 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh, is named after him. A crater on Mercury is also named in his honour.
In the centennial year of Pushkin's death in 1937, a mass renaming of streets across the entire Soviet Union occurred in his honour. In 1937, the town of Tsarskoye Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honour. There are several museums in Russia dedicated to Pushkin, including two in Moscow and one in Saint Petersburg. UN Russian Language Day, established by the United Nations in 2010 and celebrated each year on the 6th of June, was scheduled to coincide with Pushkin's birthday. In 2005 a monument to Pushkin and his grandmother Maria Hannibal was commissioned by an enthusiast of Russian culture Just Rugel in Zakharovo, Russia. Sculptor V. Kozinin created the work. In 2019, Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport was named after Pushkin in accordance to the Great Names of Russia contest.
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Common questions
When was Alexander Pushkin born and where did he die?
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin died on the 29th of January 1837 at 2:45 pm after a pistol duel. He was buried in the grounds of Svyatogorsky monastery near Pskov.
Who were the parents of Alexander Pushkin and what was their background?
His father was Sergey Lvovich Pushkin from an old noble family tracing ancestry to the 12th century. His maternal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a military general of African origin born in Central Africa bordering Lake Chad.
What major literary works did Alexander Pushkin write during his lifetime?
Pushkin wrote the verse novel Eugene Onegin serialized between 1825 and 1832 and the drama Boris Godunov written in 1825. He also published the poem Ruslan and Ludmila in 1820 and the short story The Queen of Spades.
How did Alexander Pushkin die and who killed him?
Georges d'Anthès critically wounded Alexander Pushkin with a bullet that entered his hip and penetrated his abdomen during a duel on the 27th of January 1837. Pushkin died two days later at 2:45 pm on the 29th of January 1837 from peritonitis.
Why is UN Russian Language Day celebrated on the 6th of June?
UN Russian Language Day established by the United Nations in 2010 coincides with the birthday of Alexander Pushkin. This date honors the author whose works provided fertile ground for Russian composers and writers.