Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin

(b Moscow, 26 May 1799; d St Petersburg, 29 Jan 1837). Russian poet. For the extraordinary breadth and variety of their character and the musical appeal of their language, his writings have had enormous attraction for Russian composers, including Glinka (Ruslan and Lyudmila), Dargomïzhsky (The Stone Guest), Rimsky-Korsakov (The Golden Cockerel), Tchaikovsky (Eugene Onegin, Mazeppa) and Stravinsky (Mavra).

The Russian poet and prose writer Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) ranks as the country's greatest poet. He not only brought Russian poetry to its highest excellence but also had a decisive influence on Russian literature in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Aleksandr Pushkin is Russia's national poet. He established the norms of classical Russian versification, and he laid the groundwork for much of the development of Russian prose in the 19th century. His work is distinguished by brilliance of language, compactness, terseness, and objectivity. His poetry is supremely untranslatable, and consequently Pushkin has had less influence on world literature than on Russian literature. He may be described as a romantic in subject matter and a classicist in style and form.

Pushkin was born on May 26, 1799, the son of a family of the middle nobility. On his father's side he was a descendant of one of the oldest lines of Russian nobility, and on his mother's side he was related to an Abyssinian, Abram Petrovich Hannibal, who had been kidnaped in Africa, brought to Constantinople, and sent as a gift to Peter I (the Great). Pushkin was brought up in an atmosphere that was predominantly French, and at a very early age he became acquainted with the classic works of 17th-and 18th-century French literature. Several of the important figures of Russian literature - including Nikolai Karamzin and Vasily Zhukovsky - were visitors to the Pushkin home during Aleksandr's childhood.

Between 1811 and 1817 Pushkin attended a special school established at Tsarskoye Selo (later renamed Pushkin) by Czar Alexander I for privileged children of the nobility. Pushkin was an indifferent student in most subjects, but he performed brilliantly in French and Russian literature.

Early Works, 1814-1820

After finishing school, Pushkin led the reckless and dissipated life of a typical nobleman. He wrote about 130 poems between 1814 and 1817, while still at school, and these and most of his works written between 1817 and 1820 were not published because of the boldness of his thoughts on political and erotic matters. In 1820 Pushkin completed his first narrative poem, Russlan and Ludmilla. It is a romance composed of fantastic adventures but told with 18th-century humor and irony. Before Russlan and Ludmilla was published in June 1820, Pushkin was exiled to the south of Russia because of the boldness of the political sentiments he had expressed in his poems. His "Ode to Liberty" contained, for example, a reference to the assassination of Paul I, the father of Czar Alexander I. Pushkin left St. Petersburg on May 6 and he did not return to the capital for more than 6 years.

South of Russia, 1820-1824

Pushkin spent the years 1820-1823 in various places in the Caucasus and in the Crimea, and he was at first charmed by the picturesque settings and relieved to be free of the intoxications and artificialities of the life of the capital. Subsequently, however, he felt bored by the life in small towns and took up again a life of gambling, drinking, and consorting with loose women. He was always short of money, for his salary in the civil service was small and his family refused to support him. He began to earn money with his poetic works, but these sums were seldom sufficient to permit him to compete comfortably with his affluent friends. In 1823 he was transferred to Odessa, where he found the life of a large city more to his liking.

The poet's life in Odessa in 1823-1824 was marked by three strong amorous attachments. First, he fell in love with Carolina Sobansky, a beauty who was 6 years older than he. He broke with her in October 1823 and then fell violently in love with the wife of a Dalmatian merchant, Amalia Riznich. She had many admirers and gave Pushkin ample cause for jealousy. Amalia, however, inspired some of Pushkin's best poems, such as "Night" and "Beneath the Blue Sky of Her Native Land, " and he remembered her to the end of his life. His third love was for the wife of the governor general, the Countess Eliza Vorontsov. She was a charming and beautiful woman. Vorontsov learned of the affair, and having no special liking for Pushkin he resolved to have him transferred from Odessa. He was aided in this endeavor by an unfortunate letter that Pushkin had written to a friend in which he had questioned the immortality of the soul. The letter was intercepted, and because of it Pushkin was expelled from the service on July 18, 1824, by the Czar and ordered to the family estate of Mikhailovskoye near Pskov.

Pushkin's poetic work during the 4 years that he spent in the south was rich in output and characterized by Lord Byron's influence, which can be seen in "The Caucasian Captive" (1820-1821), "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai" (1822), and "The Gypsies" (1824). These poems are mellifluous in verse and exotic in setting, but they already show the elements of Pushkin's classic style: measure, balance, terseness, and restraint.

Mikhailovskoye, 1824-1826

On Aug. 9, 1824, Pushkin arrived at Mikhailovskoye. His relations with his parents were not good. The father felt angry at his son's rebelliousness and on one occasion spread a story that his son had attempted to beat him. The family left the estate about mid-November, and Pushkin found himself alone with the family nurse, Arina Rodionovna, at Mikhailovskoye. He lived fairly much as a recluse during the next 2 years, occasionally visiting a neighboring town and infrequently entertaining old Petersburg friends. During this period he fell in love with a Madame Kern, who was married to an old general and who encouraged the attention of many men. Also at this time the nurse told Pushkin many folk tales, and it is generally believed that she imbued him with the feeling for folk life that manifested itself in many of his poems.

Pushkin's 2 years at Mikhailovskoye were extremely rich in poetic output. He completed "The Gypsies, " wrote the first three chapters of Eugene Onegin, and composed the tragedy Boris Godunov. In addition he composed many important lyrics and a humorous tale in verse entitled Count Nulin. Boris Godunov is a chronicle play. Pushkin took the subject from Karamzin's history, and it relates the claims of the impostor Demetrius to the throne of the elected monarch Boris Godunov.

Maturity, 1826-1831

After the end of his exile at Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin was received by the new czar, Nicholas I, who charmed Pushkin by his reasonableness and kindness. The Czar placed Pushkin under a privileged tyranny by promising him that his works would be censored by the Czar himself. The practical consequences of this arrangement were that Pushkin was placed under an honorable promise to publish nothing that was injurious to the government; in time this "privileged" censorship became increasingly onerous.

Pushkin continued his dissipated life after 1826 but with less gusto. Although he was still in his 20s, he began to feel the weight of his years, and he longed to settle down. On April 6, 1830, he proposed to Nathalie Goncharova for the second time and was accepted. She came from a noble family that had fallen on hard times financially. The Goncharovs were dissatisfied with Pushkin's standing with the government and were unimpressed by his reputation as a poet. Pushkin had to ask for economic favors for the Goncharovs from the government, and he persuaded his father to settle an estate on him.

Pushkin's output in the years 1826-1829 was not so great as in the years 1824-1826, but it was still impressive. He continued to work on Eugene Onegin, wrote a number of excellent lyrics, worked on but did not finish a prose novel entitled The Nigger of Peter the Great, and wrote Poltava, a narrative poem on Peter the Great's struggle with Charles XII which celebrates the Russian victory over the Swedes. This poem shows the continuing development of Pushkin's style toward objectivity and austerity.

In the fall of 1830 Pushkin left the capital to visit a small estate by the name of Boldino, which his father had left him, with the intention of spending a few weeks there. However, he was blocked from returning to the capital by measures taken by the authorities because of a cholera epidemic, and he was forced to return to Boldino. During that autumn at Boldino, Pushkin wrote some of his greatest lyrics; The Tales of Belkin; a comic poem in octaves, "The Little House in Kolomna"; and four small tragedies; and he virtually finished Eugene Onegin.

Eugene Onegin was begun in 1824 and finished in August 1831. This novel in verse is without doubt Pushkin's most famous work. It shows the influence in theme of Byron's Don Juan and in style of Laurence Sterne's novels. It is a "novel" about contemporary life, constructed in order to permit digressions and a variety of incidents and tones. The heart of the tale concerns the life of Eugene Onegin, a bored nobleman who rejects the advances of a young girl, Tatiana. He meets her later, greatly changed and now sophisticated, falls in love with her. He is in turn rejected by her because, although she loves him, she is married.

Pushkin's four little tragedies are models of spare, objective, and compact drama. The plays are short and vary in length from 240 to 550 lines. The Feast during the Plague is a translation of a scene from John Wilson's The City of the Plague; The Stone Guest is a variation of the Don Juan theme; Mozart and Salieri treats the tradition of Antonio Salieri's envy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's effortless art and the injustice of Nature in dispensing her gifts; and The Covetous Knight has as its theme avariciousness and contains the famous monologue of the baron on his treasures.

The Tales of Belkin consists of five short stories: "The Shot, " "The Snowstorm, " "The Stationmaster, " "The Undertaker, " and "The Peasant Gentlewoman." The stories are models of swift, unadorned narration.

Marriage, Duel, and Death, 1831-1837

After 1830 Pushkin wrote less and less poetry. "The Bronze Horseman" (1833) is considered by many to be his greatest poem. The setting is the great flood of 1824, which inundated much of St. Petersburg. The theme of the poem is the irreconcilable demands of the state and the individual.

The Golden Cockerel (1833) is a volume of Russian folktales. Pushkin's masterpiece in narrative is the short story "The Queen of Spades" (1834), about a gloomy engineer who is ruthless in his efforts to discover the secret of three winning cards. Mention should also be made of his The History of the Pugachev Rebellion (1834) and The Captain's Daughter (1837), a short novel about the Pugachev rebellion.

Pushkin married Nathalie Goncharova on Jan. 19, 1831. She bore him three children, but the couple were not happy together. She was beautiful and a favorite at court, but she was also somewhat uneducated and not free of vulgarity. She encouraged the attentions of Baron George d'Anthes, an exiled Alsatian Frenchman and a protégé of the minister of the Netherlands at St. Petersburg. Pushkin provoked D'Anthes to a duel on Jan. 26, 1837, and the duel took place the next day. Pushkin was wounded and died on January 29. There was great popular mourning at his death.

Many of Pushkin's works provided the basis for operas by Russian composers. They include Ruslan and Ludmilla by Mikhail Glinka, Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky, The Stone Guest by Aleksandr Dargomijsky, and The Golden Cockerel by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Further Reading

Eugene Oneginis available in many translations. Recommended are those by Dorothea Prall Raddin and George Z. Patrick (1937) and by Vladimir Nabokov (4 vols., 1964); the Nabokov translation is accompanied by massive documentation. Among the excellent biographies of Pushkin are Ernest Simmons, Pushkin (1937), a full and readable account; Henry Troyat, Pushkin: A Biography, translated by Randolphe Weaver (1950), vivid and engrossing; and another work on Pushkin's life, David Magarshack, Pushkin: A Biography (1967). Walter N. Vickery, Pushkin: Death of a Poet (1968), is a work on the final days of Pushkin's life.

The most readable and informative review of Pushkin's works is Prince D. S. Mirsky, Pushkin (1926). Mirsky's A History of Russian Literature (2 vols., 1927) is recommended for general historical and literary background; this same work is available in a one-volume abridgment edited by Francis J. Whitfield (1958).

For more information on Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, visit Britannica.com.

Pushkin, Aleksandr (b Mikulino, 7 Sept. 1907, d Leningrad, 20 Mar. 1970). Soviet dancer and teacher. His early training was with Nikolai Legat. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School, a pupil of Alexander Shiryaev, Nikolai Ivanovsky, Alexander Monakhov, and Vladimir Ponomarev. He graduated in 1925 into the Leningrad company, dancing with the GATOB (later the Kirov) from 1925 to 1953. He created roles in Vainonen's The Flames of Paris (1932) and Zakharov's Lost Illusions (1936). He began teaching in 1932, and when he retired he took over the school's Class of Perfection. As a teacher he achieved legendary status, counting among his pupils at the Leningrad school Grigorovich, Nureyev, Panov, and Baryshnikov.

(1799 - 1837), considered Russia's greatest poet, author of lyrics, plays, prose, and the novel in verse Eugene Onegin.

Of the Russian poets, none is mentioned by Russians with more reverence than Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. His work has been set to opera by Mikhail Glinka, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Peter Tchaikovsky; his lyrics have been memorized by young school-children throughout the former Soviet Union; and leading poets of the twentieth century, such as Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Alexander Blok, emphasized his impact on their work and lives. Pushkin may indeed have opened the door for the later part of the so-called Golden Age of Russian literature. At the 1880 ceremony following the unveiling of the Pushkin statue in Moscow, Ivan Turgenev credited Pushkin with giving birth to the Russian literary language; Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in an impassioned, near-hysterical speech, declared Pushkin superior to Shakespeare.

Such reverence is certainly merited, but reverence has its dangers. The author of the novel in verse Eugene Onegin, the historical play in verse Boris Godunov, the cryptic yet fluid "Belkin Tales," the brilliant "Little Tragedies" (four plays in blank verse, three of which deal with crimes of passion) the stylized folktale "Ruslan and Lyudmila," the tense, fatalistic story "Queen of Spades," and hundreds of lyrics, a master of style who absorbed and transformed European literary traditions and gave Russian folklore an unprecedented poetic expression, Pushkin attained quasi-mythological status in the twentieth century, becoming a hero figure for the Soviet establishment and dissidents alike. Yet Pushkin was a complex figure: profoundly solitary yet immersed in the social life of the aristocracy; devoted to his friends but easily incited to violence. His female characters, such as Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, have remarkable depth and soul, but he himself was primarily attracted to physical beauty in women, and brought about his own early death partly on account of this. These contradictions in his character, while perhaps limiting his literary offering, account in part for its richness; his work is both immediate and layered, both sincere and wry.

Pushkin was born in Moscow in 1799. His father Sergei descended from boyars, one of whom, mentioned in Pushkin's Boris Godunov, had been a supporter of the False Dmitry during the Time of Troubles. Pushkin's mother Nadezhda was the granddaughter of Abram Gannibal, an African slave. Abram had been brought from Africa as a gift for Peter I, who favored him and sent him to Paris for military education. With the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, Abram rose through the ranks to the status of general, but was retired following Elizabeth's death. Pushkin took pride in his African heritage, referring to it often in his lyrics. Abram's daughter Mariya, Pushkin's grandmother, not only played the role of surrogate parent to Pushkin, whose own parents gave him little attention or affection, but also recounted family history, to be reflected later in Pushkin's unfinished novel The Blackamoor of Peter the Great.

Pushkin's parents embraced the lifestyle of the aristocracy, though they could not afford it. Sergei, an adept conversationalist with a vast knowledge of French literature, invited some of Russia's leading literary figures to the household, including the historian Nikolai Karamzin and poets Konstantin Batyushkov and Vasily Zhukovsky. Pushkin and his sister and brother grew up surrounded by literati. However, Pushkin's childhood was unhappy. Pushkin was the least favored child, perhaps in part because of his African features and awkward manner. Only his grandmother and his nanny Arina Rodionova nurtured him emotionally; the latter told him folk tales and entertained him with gossip, and served later as the model for Tatiana's nanny in Eugene Onegin.

In 1811 Pushkin's parents sent him to boarding school, the Lyceum, newly established by Alexander I in a wing of his palace in Tsarskoye Selo. There Pushkin received a first-rate education (though he was not a stellar student) in a relaxed and nurturing environment, and formed friendships that would prove lifelong, with classmates Ivan Pushchin, Anton Delvig, Wilhelm Kyukhelbecker, and others. While at the Lyceum, Pushkin enjoyed a social life filled with pranks and light romantic encounters, and he amazed his teachers and classmates with his verse. The aged poet Gavryl Derzhavin, upon hearing Pushkin recite his "Recollections in Tsarskoye Selo" during an examination in 1815, recognized sixteen-year-old Pushkin as his poetic successor.

Pushkin graduated from the Lyceum in 1817. From there he moved to Petersburg, where he spent his days sleeping late, taking walks, and attending parties in the evenings. Erratic and excitable, he made public scenes at the theater on several occasions. He frequented houses of prostitutes and had a number of romantic affairs. He was a member of the literary circle "The Green Lamp," whose members, including Pushchin and Delvig, were also involved in secret political activities aimed at reform. Pushkin was not invited to join in the secret meetings, but he did write lyrics challenging the tsarist autocracy, including his ode "Freedom"(1817), "Noelles" (1818), and "The Village" (1819). The lyrics caused a stir; Pushkin was ordered to appear before Count Miloradovich, governor-general of St. Petersburg. Following that meeting in 1820, the tsar sent Pushkin into exile in the form of military service in South Russia under Lieutenant General Inzov.

Pushkin's exile was in many ways pleasant. He befriended General Rayevsky and his family and traveled with them around Caucasus and Crimea. He then spent nearly three years in Kishinev, where he wrote the verse tales "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1820 - 1821), "The Bandit Brothers" (1821 - 1822), and "The Fountain of Bakchisaray" (1821 - 1823). In addition, he wrote the scathing, mock-religious "Gavriiliada" (1821) and began his novel in verse Eugene Onegin (1823 - 1831). During this time Pushkin was captivated by Lord George Gordon Byron, particularly his Childe Harolde.

In July 1823 he was transferred to Odessa, where he had a lively social life, attended theater, and had affairs with two married women. He finished "The Fountain of Bakchisaray" and chapter one of Eugene Onegin, and began "The Gypsies."

From 1824 to 1826 he was exiled to his mother's estate of Mikhailovskoye in North Russia. There he finished "The Gypsies" and wrote the historical play in verse Boris Godunov, "Graf Nulin," and chapter two of Eugene Onegin.

In November 1825, while Pushkin was still in Mikhailovskoye, Alexander I died. The confusion over the successor provided the opportunity for secret political societies (called the Decembrists after the event) to rise up in armed rebellion against the aristocracy before Nicholas was proclaimed emperor. The uprising took place in Petersburg in December 1825 and involved poet Kondraty Ryleev, Colonel Pavel Pestel, Pushchin, Kyukhelbecker, and others. Pushkin, while not present or involved, was implicated, as some Decembrists quoted his poetry in support of their movement. Ryleev and Pestel were sentenced to death, Pushchin and Kyukhelbecker to hard labor.

In the spring of 1826 Pushkin petitioned Tsar Nicholas I for a release from exile. He met with the tsar and was granted release, but restrictions continued as before. He was under constant scrutiny, and his most minute activities were reported to the tsar.

In 1829 Pushkin met and proposed to Natalia Goncharova, a society beauty. They were formally engaged on May 18, 1830. Pushkin was given permission to publish Boris Godunov. In September 1830 Pushkin went to Boldino in east-central Russia to make wedding arrangements. Because of the outbreak of asiatic cholera, he was forced to stay three months there. This time was the most productive of his life. As part of an overall transition from poetry to prose, he wrote the magnificent Tales of Belkin, a collection of stories in taut, swift-moving prose, revolving around mistaken identity and, according to Andrej Kodjak (1979), containing an encoded message concerning the Decembrist uprising. Other works during this period include his "Little Tragedies" ("The Avaricious Knight," "Mozart and Salieri," "The Stone Guest," and "Feast in the Time of the Plague"), as well as "The Little House in Kolomna," "The Tale of the Priest and his Workman Balda," the last chapter of Eugene Onegin, and some of his finest lyrics, including "The Devils." He married Goncharova in February 1831, shortly after the unexpected death of Delvig, his closest friend after Pushchin.

Pushkin's marriage to Goncharova proved unhappy. She had little appreciation for his work, and he was unable to finance her extravagant lifestyle. Pushkin was beset with financial worries, and wrote little (including "Tale of the Golden Cockerel"(1834), the cycle of poems "Stone Island" (Kamenny ostrov, 1836) and his novel The Captain's Daughter (1836). He published a quarterly journal The Contemporary, which added to his troubles and did not fare well.

Natalia Goncharova loved mingling with the high aristocracy and playing society coquette; her many admirers included the tsar. The flirtation took on more serious tones when Baron Georges Charles d'Anthès, a French exile living in St. Petersburg under the protection of the Dutch ambassador, began to pursue her in earnest. A duel between d'Anthès and Pushkin took place on February 10, 1837. Pushkin, severely wounded, died two days later.

Of Pushkin's works, Eugene Onegin is the best known in the West, though by no means his sole masterpiece. Written over the course of eight years, it consists of eight chapters, each chapter broken into numbered stanzas in iambic tetrameter. Narrated by a stylized version of Pushkin himself, it portrays a Byronic antihero, Eugene Onegin, a bored society dandy who rejects the sincere and somber Tatiana. Onegin then flirts casually with Tatiana's sister Olga, provokes a duel with his friend Vladimir Lensky, a second-rate poet infatuated with Olga, and kills Lensky in the duel. After some travels, Onegin returns to Petersburg to find out that Tatiana has married a wealthy general. He falls in love with her, but she rejects him out of loyalty to her husband. The work holds immense popular and scholarly appeal thanks to the playfulness and perfection of the verse, the layers of confession and commentary, the appeal of the heroine, and the complex element of prophecy of Pushkin's own death.

Bibliography

Bethea, David M. (1998). Realizing Metaphors: Alexander Pushkin and the Life of the Poet. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Binyon, T. J. (2002). Pushkin: A Biography. London: HarperCollins.

Evdokimova, Svetlana. Pushkin's Historical Imagination. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Greenleaf, Monika. (1994). Pushkin and Romantic Fashion: Fragment, Elegy, Orient, Irony. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich. (1983). Complete Prose Fiction, tr. Walter W. Arndt and Paul Debreczeny. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich. (1991). Eugene Onegin, reprint ed., tr. Vladimir Nabokov. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Vitale, Serena. (1999). Pushkin's Button, tr. Ann Goldstein and Jon Rothschild. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

—DIANA SENECHAL