Aleksandr pushkin biography

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born 6 June (26 May, Old Style) 1799, Moscow, and died 10 February 1837 (29 January, New Style), St Petersburg. He was a Russian poet, novelist, dramatist and writer of short stories.

Many think he was the greatest Russian poet. He started the great tradition of Russian literature. Pushkin wrote in a way that no other Russian had done before: he used the Russian language as it was spoken instead of writing in a style based on old church books. His influence on other Russian writers was enormous and several Russian composers set his stories and poems to music. His poetry is very hard to translate well into other languages because the words are full of special meanings in Russian culture. His novels, especially Eugene Onegin, are widely read.

Pushkin was the great-grandson of an African of the Tzar Peter the Great. He was killed in a duel in 1837 at the age of 37.

Early years[change | change source]

Pushkin’s father came from an old aristocratic family. On his mother’s side Pushkin had African ancestors. His great-grandfather Abram Gannibal was an Abyssinian who was living in a palace of the Turkish sultan in Istanbul. The Russian ambassador bought him as a present for Peter the Great, the tsar of Russia. Gannibal became a favourite of Peter the Great and he was sent to Paris to study. He became very rich. Pushkin was proud of his great-grandfather and wrote him in a novel called The Negro of Peter the Great.

In 19th century Russia all aristocratic families learned to speak French, so Pushkin and his brother and sister spoke and wrote in French more than in Russian. The children were cared for by a nurse, Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva. It was the nurse who taught them to love the Russian language. She told the children Russian folktales. Pushkin also spoke Russian to the peasants and he read many books in his father’s library.

When he was 12 he went to a new school called the Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo. Years later this school was renamed Pushkin after their famous pupil. He soon started writing romantic poems in Russian using Russian tales of heroes and adventures. Ruslan and Ludmila was a poem that was later to be made into an opera by Mikhael Ga.

Adulthood[change | change source]

In 1817, Pushkin got a job in the foreign office at St. Petersburg. He soon became interested in politics and supported the Decembrist revolt of 1825 when a group of noblemen and army officers tried to put another tsar in power and make him less powerful. Pushkin wrote some political poems. The result was that he was told he had to leave St. Petersburg. He had to spend six years in exile in the south of the country: in the Caucasus and the Crimea. He wrote his experiences in the south in several romantic narrative poems (long poems which tell a story). He started work on a novel in verse called Yevgeny Onegin (or Eugene Onegin). He did not finish it until 1833. This was to be his most famous work. It was used by many musicians including Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky who made it into an opera. The poem shows typical Russian people in the society of his day.

Pushkin was angry that he was still in exile and he wrote many letters to his friends. Many of these letters were later . He spent a lot of drinking, gaming and fighting with swords. He fell in love with the daughter of a Count for whom he was working. The Count managed to get Pushkin exiled to his mother’s ee near Pskov at the other end of Russia. Pushkin spent two years here. He was lonely, but he studied Russian history and talked to the peasants. The poems he wrote were full of ideas from Russian culture. He wrote one of his major works: Boris Godunov, a drama a story from Russian history. The composer Modest Mussorgsky later made an opera from it. Boris Godunov was a cruel tsar in the 17th century. Pushkin’s play shows that the ordinary people had a lot of power. This made it difficult for Pushkin to get it .

Return from exile[change | change source]

After the revolt in 1825 the new tsar Nicholas I realized that Pushkin was by now very famous. He also realized that he had not taken part in the revolt, so he allowed him to return. The tsar said that he himself would censor Pushkin’s works before they were allowed to be . He said that he was going to be a good tsar and help the poor people (the serfs) to become free. Pushkin was in a difficult position because he could not write anything that the tsar would not like.

He had to be very careful not to say bad things the rulers of the country. The police watched him very carefully. Yet at this Pushkin wrote a large number of great works, almost each one of them being the first of their kind in Russian literature. One example is the short story The Queen of Spades, which Tchaikovsky made into an opera and which was to be a great influence on the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Last years[change | change source]

In his last years, Pushkin was again in government service in St. Petersburg. He married in 1831 and had to spend a lot of in society at court. He wrote more and more prose. He wrote a history of Peter the Great and a historical novel The Captain’s Daughter. He kept asking the tsar to let him re from his job and go to the country to spend his writing. The tsar would not allow that. In 1837, Pushkin was killed in a duel. He had been forced to fight the duel in order to defend his wife’s honour.

Pushkin’s achievements[change | change source]

The Russian language today would be very different if it had not been for Pushkin. Using the language as it was spoken by the people he made it into a language which was simple but which could also express deep feelings. His works were a great influence on later writers like Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov and Leo Tolstoy. Yevgeny Onegin was the first Russian novel which told a story the society of the . His works have been translated into all the major languages

Other websites[change | change source]

• Eugene Onegin
• Pushkin works available from .org (various languanges)
• Pushkin poetical works

Источник

Aleksandr Pushkin, in full Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, (born May 26 [June 6, New Style], 1799, Moscow, Russia-died January 29 [February 10], 1837, St. Petersburg), Russian poet, novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer; he has often been considered his country’s greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.

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The early years

Pushkin’s father came of an old boyar family; his mother was a granddaughter of Abram Hannibal, who, according to family tradition, was an Abyssinian princeling bought as a slave at Constantinople (Istanbul) and adopted by Peter the Great, whose comrade in arms he became. Pushkin immortalized him in an unfinished historical novel, Arap Petra Velikogo (1827; The Negro of Peter the Great). Like many aristocratic families in early 19th-century Russia, Pushkin’s parents adopted French culture, and he and his brother and sister learned to talk and to read in French. They were left much to the care of their maternal grandmother, who told Aleksandr, especially, stories of his ancestors in Russian. From Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva, his old nurse, a freed serf (immortalized as Tatyana’s nurse in Yevgeny Onegin), he heard Russian folktales. During summers at his grandmother’s ee near Moscow he talked to the peasants and spent hours alone, living in the dream world of a precocious, imaginative child. He read widely in his father’s library and gained stimulus from the literary guests who came to the house.

In 1811 Pushkin entered the newly founded Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo (later renamed Pushkin) and while there began his literary career with the publication (1814, in Vestnik Evropy, “The Messenger of Europe”) of his verse epistle “To My Friend, the Poet.” In his early verse, he followed the style of his older contemporaries, the Romantic poets K.N. Batyushkov and V.A. Zhukovsky, and of the French 17th- and 18th-century poets, especially the Vicomte de Parny.

While at the Lyceum he also began his first completed major work, the romantic poem Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820; Ruslan and Ludmila), written in the style of the narrative poems of Ludovico Ariosto and Voltaire but with an old Russian setting and making use of Russian folklore. Ruslan, modeled on the traditional Russian epic hero, encounters various adventures before rescuing his bride, Ludmila, daughter of Vladimir, grand prince of Kiev, who, on her wedding night, has been kidnapped by the evil magician Chernomor. The poem flouted accepted rules and genres and was violently attacked by both of the established literary schools of the day, Classicism and Senntalism. It brought Pushkin fame, however, and Zhukovsky presented his portrait to the poet with the inscription “To the victorious pupil from the defeated master.”

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St. Petersburg

In 1817 Pushkin accepted a post in the foreign office at St. Petersburg, where he was elected to Arzamás, an exclusive literary circle founded by his uncle’s friends. Pushkin also joined the Green Lamp association, which, though founded (in 1818) for ion of literature and history, became a clandestine branch of a secret society, the Union of Welfare. In his political verses and epigrams, widely circulated in manuscript, he made himself the spokesman for the ideas and aspirations of those who were to take part in the Decembrist rising of 1825, the unsuccessful culmination of a Russian revolutionary movement in its earliest stage.

Exile in the south

For these political poems, Pushkin was banished from St. Petersburg in May 1820 to a remote southern province. Sent first to Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine), he was there taken ill and, while convalescing, traveled in the northern Caucasus and later to Crimea with General Rayevski, a hero of 1812, and his family. The impressions he gained provided material for his “southern cycle” of romantic narrative poems: Kavkazsky plennik (1820-21; The Prisoner of the Caucasus), Bratya razboyniki (1821-22; The Robber Brothers), and Bakhchisaraysky fontan (1823; The Fountain of Bakhchisaray).

Although this cycle of poems confirmed the reputation of the of Ruslan and Ludmila and Pushkin was hailed as the leading Russian poet of the day and as the leader of the romantic, liberty-loving generation of the 1820s, he himself was not satisfied with it. In May 1823 he started work on his central masterpiece, the novel in verse Yevgeny Onegin (1833), on which he continued to work intermittently until 1831. In it he returned to the idea of presenting a typical figure of his own age but in a wider setting and by means of new artistic methods and techniques.

Yevgeny Onegin unfolds a panoramic picture of Russian life. The characters it depicts and immortalizes-Onegin, the disenchanted skeptic; Lensky, the romantic, freedom-loving poet; and Tatyana, the heroine, a profoundly affectionate study of Russian womanhood: a “precious ideal,” in the poet’s own words-are typically Russian and are shown in relationship to the and environmental forces by which they are molded. Although formally the work resembles Lord Byron’s Don Juan, Pushkin rejects Byron’s subjective, romanticized treatment in favour of objective description and shows his hero not in exotic surroundings but at the heart of a Russian way of life. Thus, the action begins at St. Petersburg, continues on a provincial ee, then switches to Moscow, and finally returns to St. Petersburg.

Pushkin had meanwhile been transferred first to Kishinyov (1820-23; now Chişinău, Moldova) and then to Odessa (1823-24). His bitterness at continued exile is expressed in letters to his friends-the first of a collection of correspondence that became an outstanding and enduring monument of Russian prose. At Kishinyov, a remote outpost in Moldavia, he devoted much to writing, though he also plunged into the life of a society engaged in amorous intrigue, hard drinking, gaming, and violence. At Odessa he fell passionately in love with the wife of his superior, Count Vorontsov, governor-general of the province. He fought several duels, and eventually the count asked for his discharge. Pushkin, in a letter to a friend intercepted by the police, had ed that he was now taking “lessons in pure atheism.” This finally led to his being again exiled to his mother’s ee of Mikhaylovskoye, near Pskov, at the other end of Russia.

At Mikhaylovskoye

Although the two years at Mikhaylovskoye were unhappy for Pushkin, they were to prove one of his most productive periods. Alone and isolated, he embarked on a close study of Russian history; he came to know the peasants on the ee and interested himself in noting folktales and songs. During this period the specifically Russian features of his poetry became steadily more marked. His ballad “Zhenikh” (1825; “The Bridegroom”), for instance, is based on motifs from Russian folklore; and its simple, swift-moving style, quite different from the brilliant vagance of Ruslan and Ludmila or the romantic, melodious music of the “southern” poems, emphasizes its stark tragedy.

In 1824 he Tsygany (The Gypsies), begun earlier as part of the “southern cycle.” At Mikhaylovskoye, too, he wrote the provincial chapters of Yevgeny Onegin; the poem Graf Nulin (1827; “Count Nulin”), based on the life of the rural gentry; and, finally, one of his major works, the historical tragedy Boris Godunov (1831).

The latter marks a break with the Neoclassicism of the French theatre and is constructed on the “folk-principles” of William Shakespeare’s plays, especially the histories and tragedies, plays written “for the people” in the widest sense and thus universal in their appeal. Written just before the Decembrist rising, it treats the burning question of the relations between the ruling classes, ed by the tsar, and the masses; it is the moral and political ificance of the latter, “the judgment of the people,” that Pushkin emphasizes. Set in Russia in a period of political and chaos on the brink of the 17th century, its theme is the tragic guilt and inexorable fate of a great hero-Boris Godunov, son-in-law of Malyuta Skuratov, a favourite of Ivan the Terrible, and here presented as the murderer of Ivan’s little son, Dmitri. The development of the action on two planes, one political and historical, the other psychological, is masterly and is set against a background of turbulent events and ruthless ambitions. The play owes much to Pushkin’s reading of early Russian annals and chronicles, as well as to Shakespeare, who, as Pushkin said, was his master in bold, free treatment of character, simplicity, and truth to nature. Although lacking the heightened, poetic passion of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Boris excels in the “convincingness of situation and naturalness of dialogue” at which Pushkin aimed, somes using conversational prose, somes a five-foot iambic line of great flexibility. The character of the pretender, the false Dmitri, is subtly and sympathetically drawn; and the power of the people, who eventually bring him to the throne, is so greatly emphasized that the play’s publication was delayed by censorship. Pushkin’s ability to create psychological and dramatic unity, despite the episodic construction, and to heighten the dramatic tension by economy of language, detail, and characterization make this outstanding play a revolutionary event in the history of Russian drama.

Источник

Детство

Великий русский поэт, основоположник современной системы стихосложения, родился в Москве 25.05. 1799, день его рождения совпал с православным праздником Вознесения, а крещение происходило 8. 06. 1799 в Богоявленской церкви в Елохове. Подробная биография Александра Сергеевича Пушкина, а также подробные разборы и комментарии к его произведениям становились предметом исследования выдающихся литературоведов – Ю. Тынянова, Ю. Лотмана, С. Бонди, В. Набокова, и многих других. Семья будущего поэта – высокообразованные дворяне, которые помнили предков едва ли не со времен Александра Невского. В числе предков А.С. Пушкина по материнской линии называют знаменитого Ганнибалла, который воспитывался и служил у Петра I. Темпераменты, пылкая страстность свойственна была в будущем свойственна чувствам Александра в жизни, и отразилась в его творчестве. Отец Пушкина Сергей Львович Пушкин был отставным майором, в доме будущего поэта была прекрасная библиотека. У Александра были брат Лев и сестра Ольга.

Летом юный Пушкин гостил в деревне у бабушки, которая пожелала, чтобы в воспитании Пушкина участвовала няня, ставшая любимой сказочницей и источником вдохновения поэта, Арина Родионовна. Детство Пушкина проходило среди французских гувернеров, которые его рано научили читать и писать стихи по-французски.

Учеба в Лицее

Двенадцатилетнего юношу Александра родители отвезли для учебы в Лицей в Царском селе. Лицей открылся 19.10. 1811, и первоначально был предназначен для воспитания государственной и интеллектуальной элиты общества – в том числе, великих князей. Воспитанники предназначались для будущей государственной службы, программа Лицея приравнивалась к ВУЗу и была разносторонней, но, возможно, не предполагала глубокое изучение предметов. Учащихся было немного, около 30, многие профессора молоды и имели прогрессивные взгляды, в Лицее царил дух уважения и товарищества. В Лицее выпускались рукописные журналы, многие воспитанники увлекались литературным творчеством. Юность Пушкина связана с ранними литературными успехами, в том числе знаменитым выступлением в присутствии прославленного Гавриила Державина. На дальнейшее развитие поэтического творчества повлияло творчество Батюшкова, Жуковского, Фонвизина, Радищева.

Дух лицейской дружбы, воспоминания о профессорах и контакты с лицеистами прошли через всю дальнейшую жизнь Александра. Трое друзей поэта непосредственно участвовали в восстании декабристов. Отметим, что немного позже лицейское образование получил Михаил Глинка, будущий автор первой русской классической оперы.

Закончив Лицей, Пушкин поступает на службу в чине коллежского секретаря в Коллегию иностранных дел. Он общается с поэтами из литературных сообществ «Арзамас», а также «Зеленая лампа». Пушкин был завзятым театралом, посещал модные рестораны, участвовал в дуэлях, к счастью, не имевших трагических последствий. В его стихотворениях этого периода чувствуется юношеский темперамент, порой юмор, а также гражданский пафос. В 1821 году создается поэма «Кавказский пленник», в 1822 – «Руслан и Людмила», а также возникает замысел «Евгения Онегина».

Крым

Полная биография А.С. Пушкина включает не только поэтические труды, но также тяготы, ссылки, проблемы в отношениях поэта с властью. Идеи вольности, свободы, национальный подъем отразились в пушкинских стихах, и царь Александр I принял решение о ссылке в Сибирь для Пушкина. Хлопоты друзей и других – способствовали тому, что ссылка в Сибирь заменена ссылкой на юг. Официально южная ссылка поэта была представлена как перевод по служебным делам. К этому периоду относится страстное увлечение Пушкина творчеством Байрона.

В это время поэт много путешествует по городам Крыма. Через некоторое время канцелярия Инзова перебазировалась в Кишинев, откуда Пушкин мог выезжать в Киев, Одессу, Измаил и другие места. В селе Каменка Пушкин общается с будущими декабристами, образовавшими тайное общество, в Кишиневе – становится членом масонской ложи «Овидий». Разнообразные впечатления южных лет отразились в поэмах: «Кавказском пленнике», «Цыганах», «Братьях – разбойниках», «Гаврилиаде», «Бахчисарайском фонтане», поэт интенсивно работает и над романом «Евгений Онегин». В 1823 Пушкина зачисляют на службу к графу Воронцову, поэт переезжает в Одессу. Здесь он посещает рестораны, итальянскую оперу, наслаждается живым разнообразием одесской жизни и весьма разноплановым обществом.

Михайловское

Под несущественным предлогом, по причине разногласий с гр. Воронцовым, Александр I в 1824 году увольняет Пушкина со службы, возникает вторая ссылка поэта в Михайловское. Ссылка длилась два года, с 1824 по 1826. Для пылкого темперамента михайловская ссылка сначала была в тягость, потом он осознал, что нет лучших условий для работы и завершения романа «Евгений Онегин». Пушкин общается с няней Ариной Родионовной, соседями по селу Тригорскому, эти впечатления отразились в поэтических образах его сочинений.

В Михайловском претерпевает значительные изменения творческий метод Пушкина, поэт освобождается от подражательного романтизма, талант его крепнет, он лучше осознает собственную индивидуальность. Здесь создано более ста произведений, в числе которых «Борис Годунов», «Граф Нулин», и многие другие.

Восстание декабристов

Импульсом к изменению судьбы поэта становятся политические события – кончина царя Александра I, и восстание декабристов 14.12 1825. На Сенатскую площадь выходят множество друзей поэта. К власти приходит царь Николай I, который вызывает Пушкина в Москву, разрешает жить в любом городе, где Пушкин захочет, и объявляет себя личным цензором поэта. Это обстоятельство порой создавало поэту материальные затруднения, поскольку было непросто получить разрешение на печатание новых сочинений.

Пушкин получает возможность жить в Москве и в Петербурге, навещать друзей в Тригорском и Михайловском, к 1829 году относится сватовство к Наталье Гончаровой. Неопределенный ответ будущей невесты побуждает поэта к поездке на Кавказ. Он создает сочинения «Путешествие в Арзрум», «Полтава», стихотворения, статьи.

По поводу самовольной поездки Пушкин вынужден был давать объяснения шефу жандармов, А. Бенкендорфу. Фактически, Пушкин был подвергнут тайному надзору, который продолжался даже после смерти поэта и прекратился только через несколько лет после его гибели.

Помолвка и свадьба

06.05.1830 состоялась долгожданная помолвка с Натальей Гончаровой. Поэт получает от отца деревню Кистеневку и отправляет туда по делам, чтобы потом начать подготовку к свадьбе. Но в Москве разразилась эпидемия холеры и повсеместно были введены карантины. Поэт вынужденно задерживается в селе Болдино, беспокоится за здоровье невесты и чувствовал подавленность. Вскоре письмо невесты успокаивает его, приводит в более гармоничное состояние. Болдинская осень становится периодом необыкновенного творческого подъема. Среди творческих достижений – завершение романа «Евгений Онегин», создание многих других сочинений. Талант поэта достигает наивысшего расцвета.

05.12. 1830 поэт возвращается в Москву и 18.02. 1831 происходит венчание с Натальей Гончаровой. С 1831 и до кончины поэта семья Пушкиных живет в Петербурге, в семье рождаются четверо детей.

С 1832 года Пушкин также работает над историческими материалами, посвященными истории Петра I и восстания Емельяна Пугачева, посещает многие места, которые связаны с этими событиями. К 1833 году относится создание поэм «Медный всадник» и «Анджело», работа над сочинениями «Пиковая дама» и «Дубровский», переводы баллад Мицкевича, и других сочинений.

Интриги и дуэль

В 1834 году поэт получает чин камер-юнкера, который вынуждает его к нежелательной для него светской жизни. Необходимость содержать семью, оказание материальной помощи родителям, необходимость отдавать каждое стихотворение на проверку Бенкендорфу и вынужденная задержка издательских дел – все это создавало большие финансовые затруднения для поэта. Издание «Истории Пугачева» не поправило финансового положения, и Пушкин просит разрешения уединиться в деревне для поправки свои дел. Осень 1835 года он проводит в Михайловском.

Большое значение в последние годы жизни и деятельности Пушкина архивных изысканий и издательские проекты (издание «Современника») приводят к непониманию окружающих. Многие считают, что Пушкин отходит от литературных трудов, занимается публицистикой историческими изысканиями исключительно ради заработка. Исследователи творчества Пушкина, в частности Тынянов, утверждают, что Пушкин значительно расширил границы литературного жанра за счет внелитературных – научных и публицистических.

Среди последних значительных сочинений Пушкина – «Капитанская дочка», эта повесть была закончена в лицейскую годовщину 19. 10. 1836 г., а также поэтический «каменноостровский цикл». 29.03. 1836 умерла мать Пушкина Надежда Осиповна, и он в связи с ее похоронами посещает Михайловское в последний раз.

С начала 1834 г. возникает светская интрига – влюбленность барона Дантеса в жену Пушкина. Получив анонимное послание, Пушкин вызывает Дантеса на дуэль. Француз попросил отсрочки и посватался к сестре Натальи, Екатерине Гончаровой. После долгих уговоров друзей Пушкин отозвал свой вызов. Дантес женился на Екатерине 10.01. 1837 года, но оскорбительные для поэта ухаживания с его стороны не прекратились. 27.01. 1837 года на Черной речке состоялась дуэль, которая привела к трагической гибели поэта. Пушкин скончался 29. 01 1837 г. в квартире на набережной Мойки, которая стала его музеем. Ежегодно 6.06 и в другие памятные даты здесь проходят в поэтические вечера, концерты и другие мероприятия. Творчество поэта пользуется всенародной любовью и восхищением, Пушкин оказал влияние на творчество всех выдающихся русских поэтов и писателей как в XIX, так и в XX веке. На тексты Пушкина созданы множество музыкальных сочинений, знаменитые оперы Глинки, Чайковского, Римского-Корсакова.

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