PUSHKIN Alexander Sergeevich (1799-1837, St. Petersburg), poet, prose writer, playwright, historian, journalist. Studied at the Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo (1811-17; memorial plaque; presently a memorial museum). It was the public performing of his ode Remembrances in Tsarskoe Selo at the Lyceum examination, presided by G. R. Derzhavin on 8 January 1815, that Pushkin consideres the beginning of his literary career. Upon graduation from the Lyceum Pushkin served at the Foreign Affairs Collegium. In 1820 was exiled from St. Petersburg to Chisinau (Kishinev), Odessa, subsequently to the village of Mikhailovskoe in the Pskov province. From 1827-31 occasionally visited St. Petersburg (stayed at the Demutov Traktir). In 1831 after marrying Natalia Goncharova moved to St. Petersburg. Pushkin was a member of the Arzamas society, Zelenaya Lampa (Green Lamp) circle; was closely associated with the Free Society for the Friends of the Russian Philology. Pushkin intermingled with numerous literary figures, was acquainted with А. А. Delwig, V. K. Kuchelbecker, P. Y. Chaadaev, V. A. Zhukovsky, P. А. Vyazemsky, N. М. Karamzin, Е. А. Baratynsky, K. N. Batyushkov, P. А. Pletnev, N. V. Gogol, А. S. Griboedov and many others. During different periods visited salons of Princess Е. I. Golitsyna, А. N. Olenina, Karamzina's salon, D. F. Fikelmon's salon, Odoevsky's salon, the Wednesdays of Smirnova-Rosset and others. Appeared in the Syn Otechestva, Biblioteka dlya chtenia journals, Polyarnaia Zvezda almanac, Severnye Tsvety almanac and others. Took active part in the publication of the Litaraturnaya Gazeta newspaper; founder of the Sovremennik journal. Pushkin's first book - the poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820), first poems collection Poems (1826), a lifetime collection of works - Poems by Alexander Pushkin in four volumes (1829-35), first separate full edition of Evgeny Onegin (1833), The Narratives Published by Alexander Pushkin (1834), Poems and Narratives by Alexander Pushkin in two volumes (1835) and many others were published in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is considered the city of the poet's early literary fame and the place where his last drama occurred. Pushkin was mortally wounded at a duel in the surroundings of St. Petersburg, in the vicinity of the Chernaya Rechka River [in 1937 an obelisk was erected at the supposed site of the duel (architect А. I. Lapirov, sculptor М. G. Manizer)]. The burial service was read in the Holy Face Church of the Court Stables (1 Konyushennaya Square; memorial plaque). Continuing the traditions of the 18th century, Pushkin harmonically merged diverse genres and styles both in poetry and prose, thus creating a new literature language and a new writing manner, which determined the development of Russian literature in the 19th and 20th centuries. For the first time in Russian literature Pushkin gave a complex, manifold description of St. Petersburg; the poet illustrates the city's past and present, revealing their continuity. The city becomes one of the characters of his works, and the literary phenomenon, later called Petersburg text, is established; it was cultivated in Gogol's, Dostoevsky's works, as well as of other writers. The St. Petersburg theme is closely associated with the evaluation of Peter the Great's reforms (the unfinished novel The Negro of Peter the Great , 1827; The Bowl of Peter the Great, 1835; preparatory material to The History of Peter the Gtreat, 1835; others); the architectural regalia embody the various aspects of Russian history and statehood (see, e.g., Mikhaylovsky Palace as a symbol of tyranny in the ode Freedom 1817, written according to the legend in the house of the A. I. Turgenev and N. I. Turgenev brothers at 20 Fontanka River Embankment); the city's manifold modern life is exposed (the aristocratic, high-society, cultural St. Petersburg in Evgeny Onegin's first chapter, saturated with topographic regalia; an insight into the life of Petersburg outskirts is given in the poem The House in Kolomna, 1830; and others). The image of St. Petersburg is impregnated in The Bronze Horseman with strong symbolic tension (Petersburg Narratives — according to Pushkin's genre definition) (1833; was first published in 1837 after the poet's death with considerable distortions). The explicit apologia of St. Petersburg develops in the poem into the theme of fatal menace and catastrophic downfall of the city over God's elements, the triumph of Peter the Great's historic genius, intellect and his will's creative potency, Russian glory, embodied in the image of St. Petersburg, stand as a rigorous and tragic ordeal measured by the sufferings of an individual. The narrative The Queen of Spades, (1834) with its fantastic atmosphere and a special genuine Petersburg type (Dostoevsky) of character played an important part in the evolution of the Petersburg Text technique in Russian literature (Princess N. P. Golitsina's House at 10 Morskaya Street is traditionally considered the house where Pushkin's old countess lived). Pushkin's Petersburg addresses are: from 1817-20: 185 Fontanka River Embankment (memorial plaque); 1831 - Tsarskoe Selo, Kolpinskaya Street (the town of Pushkin, 2 Pushkinskaya Street; memorial plaque; (today Pushkin summer cottage museum); 1831-32: 53 Galernaya Street (memorial plaque); 1832 — Furshtatskaya Street (the house has not survived, section of house 20); 1832-33: 26 Bolshaya Morskaya Street; 1833-34: 5 Panteleymonovskaya Street (today Pestelya Street), 1834-36 — 32, Frunzenskaya Embankment (today Kutuzova Embankment), (memorial plaque); 1836-37 —12, the Moika River Embankment (memorial plaque; today Pushkin memorial museum-flat). Pushkinskaya Street (since1881) and a number of streets in Pushkinsky, Pavlovsky, Kolpinsky, Kurortny, Krasnoselsky districts are named after Pushkin. In 1937-89 Birzhevaya Square was called Pushkinskaya. The Children's Library, the Russian State Academic Drama Theatre (see Alexandrinsky Theatre), the Russian Literature Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin's House), where the poet's manuscript legacy is reposited, a metro station and a number of other objects are also named after Pushkin. In 1937 Detskoe Selo (formerly Tsarskoe Selo) was renamed into Pushkin. See also the article Pushkin's monuments.
References: Гордин А. М., Гордин М. А. Путешествие в пушкинский Петербург. Л., 1983; Осповат А. Л., Тименчик Р. Д. Печальну повесть сохранить...: Об авторе и читателях Медного всадника. М., 1985; Иезуитова Р. В., Левкович Я. Л. Пушкин и Петербург: Страницы жизни поэта. СПб., 1999; Сурат И. З., Бочаров С. Г. Пушкин: Крат. очерк жизни и творчества. М., 2002.
Д. Н. Ахапкин, D. N. Cherdakov.
