Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Pushkin was born at the end of the 18th century in Moscow, where his parents were members of the Russian nobility. His parents frequently left him in the care of his nurses and French tutors, and as a result, Pushkin mostly spoke French until he was 10 years old, only learning Russian through household serfs and his nanny. Pushkin published his first poem at age 15 and was already building a reputation as a writer when he graduated from the Imperial Lyceum, one of the most prestigious schools in St. Petersburg. His first major work was the long poem Ruslan and Ludmila, an epic fairy tale published in 1820. Perhaps his best-known work is Eugene Onegin, which he published serially, with the first volume released in 1825 and a completed edition published in 1833. In 1831, he married Natalia Goncharova, a Moscow heiress, with whom he had four children. Despite Pushkin’s literary fame, by the end of his life, he had fallen into debt. He died at age 37 in a duel with Georges d’Anthès, whom Pushkin believed was having an affair with his wife. He remains one of the most popular Russian writers.