PUSHKIN. ptish'kt-n. ALEXANDER SERGEYE VITCH (1709-1837). The greatest poet of Russia. He was born at Moscow of a noble family, in heriting African blood from a maternal ancestor. According to the fashion of the time. his educa tion at home was purely French, and his knowl edge of Russia was obtained from nursery tales, legends, and songs. In 1811 he entered the Im perial Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo, where he soon attracted general attention by his outspoken criticisms of everything and everybody, his neg lect of study, his bold epigrams, and his poetic endowments. His first published poem bears the date of 1814, and at the public examination in 1815 he aroused the admiration of the veteran poet Derzhavin by his Recollections of Tsarskoye ,5c/o. On graduating in 1817. Pushkin became a clerk in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was now a well-known figure in Russian literature and was immediately accepted as a member of the literary society Arzamas, whose members were the shining lights of the day. His first important long poem, BusIan and Lyadmila (1817-20i, a bold combination of fancy and realism, attracted much attention. About this time, because of his objec tionable political views, Pushkin was sent to Southern Russia with General Inzoff's colonizing bureau. The life in Bessarabia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Odessa was an important period for Pushkin; the variety and gorgeousness of the natural scenery, life among new people, the influ ence of Byron, with whose works he now became acquainted—all these are set forth in glowing colors in his works of this period. The Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Baklitchisarti, the first three cantos of Yergen Onyegin (Eugene Onegin), a novel in verse, and The are all a direct product of his Byronism. In 1524 he was transferred to his mother's estate. Mikhaylofskoye (Government of Pskov). The two years spent in
this remote corner of Russia were the most fruit ful in his life. Cantos four to six of ifrgen Onyegin, The Brother Murderers. and the drama Boris Codunoff were written in this exile. Push kin freely admitted his indebtedness to Shake speare, Karamzin, and the Chronicles, but the drama is entirely original in character. All the characters, as well as the masses and historical background, are Russian through and through and drawn with a marvelous fidelity to the epoch. In 1829 appeared his Po/tara (finished in less than a month), depicting the struggle between Peter the Great and Charles XIl. and the treach ery of Mazeppa. In 1831 he produced the last two cantos of Yerficii Onyegin. Written within a period embracing about nine years, this picture of society reflects various incidents of the poet's life during its composition.
In 1831 Pushkin was attached to the Foreign Ministry with a yearly salary of 5000 rubles to write a history of Peter the Great. In 1833 he received 20.000 rubles to print his History of the Pugatcheff Insurrection. During this period his works were chiefly in prose: the novels The Captain's Daughter (1836) and DubrorRki (pub lished I S4 1 1. and the history. gave Russian prose its highest degree of perfection. Ile was killed in a duel with D'Anthes. adopted on of the Dutch Ambassador, whose association with Mine. Push kin had caused much gossip.
Pushkin was the flowering of all that was best in Russian literature before him. He possessed an original intellect, n•Oiforeed by a quick in tuition. His humor was gentle and his wit keen: his epigrams are among the hest ever produced in any langnage. He had an extraordinary mastery of the technique of his art. A monument to him was erected at Moscow in 1850.