Alexander Pushkin

Rise

Pushkin remained in Chișinău through 1823, producing two Romantic poems that earned him recognition: The Prisoner of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisaray. The following year, he moved to Odessa, where he once more fell out with the authorities. As punishment, he was exiled to his mother’s rural estate at Mikhailovskoye, near Pskov, from 1824 to 1826. There, he composed nostalgic love verses dedicated to Elizaveta Vorontsova, the wife of Novorossiya’s General-Governor, and continued work on his verse-novel Eugene Onegin.

In 1825, he wrote the poem To. Most believe it was meant for Anna Kern, but other theories exist: poet Mikhail Dudin thought it honored the serf Olga Kalashnikova; Pushkinist Kira Victorova argued it was for Empress Elizaveta Alekseyevna; and Vadim Nikolayev insisted it was for Tatyana Larina, the heroine of Eugene Onegin. That same year, Pushkin completed his most famous play, Boris Godunov, though he could not secure permission to publish it until five years later. The original, uncensored version was not performed until 2007.

After his poem Ode to Liberty turned up among the possessions of rebels from the Decembrist Uprising, authorities called him to Moscow. Following his earlier exile, friends and family had repeatedly petitioned for his freedom. When he finally met Emperor Nicholas I, Pushkin gained his release and took a post as the emperor’s Titular Counsel of the National Archives. Yet the emperor kept tight control over all of Pushkin’s published work and forbade him from traveling freely.

Death

By the autumn of 1836 Pushkin was falling into greater debt and faced scandalous rumours that his wife was having a love affair. On 4 November he sent a challenge to a duel to Georges d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern. Jacob van Heeckeren, d'Anthès' adoptive father, asked for a two-week delay, and with efforts by the poet's friends the duel was cancelled. On 17 November d'Anthès proposed to Natalia Goncharova's sister, Ekaterina, but the marriage did not resolve the conflict; d'Anthès continued to pursue Natalia Goncharova in public, and rumours circulated that he had married the sister just to save her reputation.

He received the formal challenge through his sister-in-law, Ekaterina Gekkerna, approved by d'Anthès, on the same day through the attaché of the French Embassy, Viscount d'Archiac. Pushkin asked Arthur Magenis, attaché to the British Consulate-General in Saint Petersburg, to be his second; Magenis did not formally accept and later declined. The pistol duel with d'Anthès took place on 27 January (8 February) at the Black River, without a second for Pushkin.

It was a barrier duel: the duellists began at an agreed distance, walked toward each other, and could fire at any time. D'Anthès fired first, critically wounding Pushkin; the bullet entered at his hip and penetrated his abdomen. D'Anthès was only lightly wounded in the right arm. Two days later, at 2:45 pm on 29 January (10 February), Pushkin died of peritonitis.

Legacy

Critics consider many of Pushkin's works masterpieces, including the poem The Bronze Horseman and the drama The Stone Guest, a tale of the fall of Don Juan. His poetic short drama Mozart and Salieri, one of the four Little Tragedies, was the inspiration for Peter Shaffer's Amadeus and provided the libretto for Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri. Pushkin is also known for his short stories, particularly the cycle The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, which includes "The Shot".

According to literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, the narrative logic, plausibility, precision, and conciseness of these tales, especially in "The Stationmaster", mark Pushkin as the progenitor of Russian realist literature. Pushkin himself preferred his verse novel Eugene Onegin, which he wrote over the course of his life and which follows a few central characters while varying widely in tone and focus. Onegin is so complex that translator Vladimir Nabokov needed two full volumes to render its meaning into English; because of translation difficulties, Pushkin's verse remains largely unknown to English readers, though he has profoundly influenced western writers such as Henry James.

Pushkin's works also provided fertile ground for Russian composers: Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila is the earliest important Pushkin-inspired opera, and Tchaikovsky's operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades became perhaps better known outside Russia than Pushkin's own works.

Works

The following list of works is based on the Complete Works in Ten Volumes (1950–1951, Russian Academy of Sciences) and the Complete Works in 19 volumes (Moscow: Воскресенье, 1994–1997). Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic is used for romanisation of Russian titles. Major works include: Ruslan i Ljudmila (1817–20); Kavkazskij plennik (1820–21); Gavriiliada (1821, published 1861); Vadim (1821–22, unfinished); Brat'ja razbojniki (1821–22, mostly lost); Baxčisarajskij fontan (1821–23); Cygany (1824); Graf Nulin (1825); Poltava (1828–29); Tazit (1829–30, unfinished); Domik v Kolomne (1830); Evgenij Onegin (1823–30); Ezerskij (1832–33, unfinished); Andželo (1833); Mednyj vsadnik (1833); Boris Godunov (1824–25); Malen'kie tragedii (1830), including Skupoj rycar', Mocart i Sal'eri, Kamennyj gost', and Pir vo vremja čumy; Sceny iz rycarskih vremen (1835, unfinished); Rusalka (1829–32, unfinished); Car' Nikita i sorok ego dočerej (1822, published 1858); and Ženix (1825).

Did You Know?

• Pushkin spoke mostly French until the age of ten and became acquainted with Russian through household serfs and his nanny, Arina Rodionovna.
• His great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, an African page kidnapped and taken to Constantinople as a gift for the Ottoman Sultan, then transferred to Russia as a gift for Peter the Great.
• At the Lyceum, Pushkin was a student of David Mara, a younger brother of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat.