On 182 years ago today, on February 10, 1837, the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin [26 May 1799 (6 June in the Gregorian calendar) – 29 January in the Russian calendar (10 February 1837)] died of a serious injury in the abdomen during a duel with the French officer Dantes, who was a famous Russian writer and the founder of modern Russian literature.
Illustration: The painting "Pushkin's Farewell to the Sea" by the painter Repin and Avazovsky (created in 1877 and now in the Pushkin All-Russian Museum)
Pushkin was the most important representative of Russian Romantic literature in the 19th century and is known as the "father of Russian literature".
His work reflects the rise of national consciousness in Russia and the revolutionary movement of the Russian nobility. His representative works include poems such as "Ode to Freedom", "To the Sea", "To Chadayev", "If Life Deceives You", poetic novels such as "Evgeny Onegin", novels "The Captain's Daughter", "Queen of Spades" and so on.
Illustration: Genealogy of the Pushkin family
His maternal grandfather was the famous black general Abram Petrovich Ganibal (Абрам Петрович Ганннибал, 1696 – 25 May 1781), for which Pushkin also wrote a novel called The Black Slave of Peter the Great, which unfortunately was not completed during his lifetime.
Illustration: Ilya Repin and Ivan Avazovsky's 1877 oil painting Pushkin Farewell to the Sea
He was talented and played a variety of roles as a poet, playwright, novelist, literary critic and master of literary theory, historian and social activist. He laid the course for Russian realist literature, and he was one of the most influential writers of the first three decades of the 19th century. He is recognized as the greatest poet in Russian history and the founder of modern Russian literary language.
Illustration: A facsimile of Pushkin's manuscript
Pushkin's self-portrait
Of course, the most familiar pushkin poem for the female compatriots of the Heavenly Dynasty is this "If Life Deceives You":
If life deceives you..." Alexander Pushkin
If life deceives you,
Don't be sad, don't be angry!
On the day of despondency, humble yourself:
The day of fun, believe me, will come.
The heart lives in the future;
The present is dull:
Everything is instantaneous, everything will pass;
What passes, it will be cute.
If life deceives you,
Don't be sad, don't be anxious!
Calm down on a melancholy day:
Believe it, happy days will come!
The heart is always yearning for the future;
Now it's often melancholy.
Everything is instantaneous, everything will pass;
And what has passed will become a kind nostalgia.
The painting is Repin's 1911 "Pushkin's Entrance Examination in the Imperial Village"