On this date in 1799, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born in Moscow. Born into a poor, aristocratic family, Pushkin saw his first poem published at age 14. He joined the foreign office in 1817 but was banished to South Russia as a young man for radical poetry that also satirized religion, such as “Ode to Liberty.” He was permitted to return to his mother’s estate and then to St. Peterburg after several years.
Pushkin’s epics include “Ruslan and Ludmila” (1820), “Boris Gudenov” (1831), and “Evgenii Onegin” (1833). He returned to a government position in 1831, and founded a review publication in 1836. He died of peritonitis after fighting a duel over his young wife in 1837. Pushkin’s complete works were published in 12 volumes. An admirer of the Enlightenment and Voltaire, the deistic writer is considered the founder of modern Russian literature. (D. 1837)
