Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) is the founder of modern Russian literature. Born into an old noble family in Moscow, with an African great-grandfather who had served Peter the Great, he was famous as a poet while still at school. His liberal verses earned him exile from the capital in 1820, and he remained under suspicion for life. His works include the verse novel Eugene Onegin, the drama Boris Godunov, the narrative poems The Bronze Horseman and The Gypsies, and the prose of The Queen of Spades, the Tales of Belkin and The Captain's Daughter. He died at thirty-seven of a wound received in a duel over his wife's honor.