Alexander Pushkin: The Stories

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799–1837) was one of Russia's most famous storytellers, poets, novelists and playwrights. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. through his father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin. His matrilineal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal who, of African descent, was kidnapped as a child, and later taken to Russia and presented as a gift to Peter the Great, where he was freed, adopted and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson. Pushkin learned French alongside Russian and spent much of his time reading. He published his first poem at the age of 15, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. As an adult, he was exiled to Mikhailovskoye due to clashes with the government, and then the northern Caucasus, the Crimea, Odessa and elsewhere, where ultimately his observations gave him a fertile ground for his creativity. Nicholas I allowed him to return to Moscow in 1826. He married the writer Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova in 1831. He died at the age of 37 after being wounded in a duel defending his wife’s honor. Among his most prominent works are the poems Ruslan i Ludmila (Ruslan and Ludmila); Cawcazskiy plennik (The Prisoner of the Caucasus); and the play Pir vo vremya chumy (A Feast in Time of Plague).