Aleksandr Pushkin, great romantic Russian poet

 Aleksandr Pushkin, the father of modern Russian poetry

(1) painting by Vasily Tropinin (1827)

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (Александр Сергеевич Пушкин) was born in Moscow on May 26, 1799, he died in St. Petersburg on 29 January 1837. He was a poet, playwright and Russian novelist, founder of modern Russian literature. His work falls within the Romantic movement.

Pushkin created a narrative style, mixing drama, romance and satire, using the Russian language and greatly influenced subsequent literary figures such as Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Tyutchev and Tolstoy.

(2) Aleksandr Pushkin (1827), portrayed by Orest Kiprenski.Galería Tretyakov, Moscow.

He was a descendant of one of the oldest families in the Russian aristocracy, whose history dates back to the twelfth century. His maternal grandmother and his nurse, a peasant humble, for which he felt an immense devotion to the end of his life, instilled in him a deep love for Russian folk tales and poetry; made remarkable because his aristocratic family in French was spoken. Pushkin received a good literary education based on literature and French language. Avid reader since childhood, astonished by its ease to improvise imitations of his teachers, Molière, Voltaire and Evariste Parny French, and the English Shakespeare and Byron.

(3) Aleksandr Pushkin at age 14 before reciting a poem Derzhavin in the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo. Box Ilya Repin (1911).

Between 1811 and 1817 study in the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo later -called "Lyceum Pushkin" in his honor-near St. Petersburg, where he began writing his poem Ruslan and Lyudmila, published in 1820 among much controversy over the issue and style . In this poem he put aside poetic canons of Neoclassicism, was hailed by readers and gradually won the support of veterans poets.

In 1820 he started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and gradually involved in social reform movements, becoming spokesman for the radical writers to write poems like Oda to freedom, so the Tsar Alexander I almost banished him to Siberia ; but protectors and admirers achieved a lighter sentence.

(4) Pushkin's Farewell to the sea. Box Ivan Aivazovsky and Ilya Repin (1877).

The landscapes and people of the Caucasus impressed the poet; so he wrote the romantic poem The Captive of the Caucasus, between 1820 and 1821. He wrote poems Gabrielada (1821), The Brothers bandits (1822), The source of Bakhchisaray (1823) and poems golds. In 1823 work began summit, the verse novel Eugene Onegin. In 1825 he wrote the historical drama Boris Godunov, The Count Nulin (1825) and Roma (1827).

Returning to Moscow in 1830 he met Natalia Goncharova, one of the most beautiful women of her time. He retired to his father's estate in Boldino, Nizhny Novgorod. He wrote the history of the village Goriújino, small tragedies - Mozart and Salieri, The Miserly Knight, The Stone Guest (cover of Don Juan) and other works. He married Natalia Goncharova in 1831; it joined the Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs with special salary 5000 rubles.

(5) Natalia Goncharova (Pushkina), portrait by Aleksandr Briullov (1822-1877).

Pushkin had many expenses (a new child every year, two unmarried sisters of his wife living with him, his gambling, frequent and expensive parties, balls and receptions that his wife was busy); so even with an incessant literary work and the magnificent salary, accumulated huge debts. In 1836 he published the literary journal The Contemporary magazine would acquire a maximum prestige in Russian letters.

But envy lurked and January 27, 1837, at age 37, Pushkin is mortally wounded in a duel with the French officer Georges d'Anthès, protected and secret lover of the Dutch ambassador, one on the outskirts of St. Petersburg . They handled the gun, so that the poet could not defend himself, and the first bullet contrary gun hit him chest to start the match, dying without the doctors could do nothing, on the morning of January 29, 1837. A great loss for the Russian and world literature

The Flower (1828)

The flower, very dry and scentless,

I see in the forgotten book;

And now, with the strangest fancies,

Is filled my soul’s every nook.

Where and in which spring was it grown?

And how long? By whom was cut?

By a hand known or unknown?

And why was put this page behind?

To the recall of the love-talking,

Or separation forced by fate,

Or quiet and alone walking

In the fields’ silence and woods’ shade?

Is he alive? And his sweet lady?

And where is now their little nook?

Or maybe they had both faded,

Like this strange flower in this book? 

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November 10, 2003

In the video there are  excerpts from Pushkin's life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNAxMcL-ryQ

 References

Aleksandr Pushkin

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Pushkin

Aleksandr Pushkin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin

Aleksandr Pushkin, The Flower, poema de 1828

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/yevgeny/pushkin/flower.html