Last days of Pushkin’s life in the spotlight of the Presidential Library

February 10, 2020 marks the 183th anniversary of the death of Alexander Pushkin, whose work and personality do interest millions of readers in Russia and abroad. The Presidential Library’s collection Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) in its rare editions illustrates all the uniqueness of the nature of a genius.

The last year of Pushkin’s life left many mysteries, according to the richest sources of the Presidential Library. For example, in one of the articles of the journal Russkaya Starina for June 1880, a detailed set of complex circumstances was considered that burdened the poet’s existence to the limit. It says that the huge monetary debts of the Pushkin family grew like a snowball: there were already four children. The nursery was outside the office door, and even while working, Alexander Sergeyevich heard fuss and funny cries of "Grishka, Sashka, Mashka and Natashka". New investments were required: the poet wrote, sitting in the Voltaire armchair, bought on credit.

The newspapers and magazines of that time intensified the literary enemies and envious of the poet.

On Easter Day, March 29, 1836, the writer's mother died. Relations between Nadezhda Osipovna and her son have always been difficult, a misunderstanding on her part greatly overshadowed the childhood of little Sasha. And, perhaps, precisely because of undisclosed love for each other, the son so tragically took the departure of his mother. Alexander Sergeyevich himself drove her body from St. Petersburg to the Holy Mountains and buried her in the Assumption Monastery. Here, next to her, he chose a place for himself, as if anticipating a near demise.

Particularly striking is the decisiveness of Pushkin, who in this difficult period for him undertook to publish and edit the journal Sovremennik conceived by him, which is reflected in the electronic copy of the Russkaya Starina magazine of June 1880.

Nevertheless, the Pushkin family spent their last summer in the country, on the splendid Kamenny Island, and returned to the Moika only on October 12. The poet’s house was waiting for an invitation to Tsarskoye Selo to the traditional lyceum anniversary on October 19. “Pushkin was preparing the usual poem for this day, but did not have time to finish it”, - we read in the journal Russkaya Starina (June, 1880). - Appearing for the holiday, he apologized to his comrades that he would read them a play, which was not quite finished; unfolded a sheet of paper, <...>, everything fell silent, <...>, he began: "It was time: our holiday was young / Beamed, rustled and married with roses...". And suddenly tears rolled from his eyes; the voice stopped. He laid the paper on the table and went into the corner of the room, on the sofa. Another comrade read for Pushkin his last Lyceum.

In the same year 1836, which was not easy for a writer, the best artists of Russia asked the poet to pose for them to create a portrait, but he often refused. The reason was that Pushkin did not like his appearance.

On November 4, 1836, Alexander Pushkin received three copies of an anonymous message that brought the poet into the Order of “cuckolds”. This was a hint of his wife’s infidelity, and then Pushkin challenged the alleged offender George-Charles Dantes to a duel.  

Thus, on February 10, 1837, the great Russian poet, playwright and prose writer, one of the most respected literary figures of the first third of the 19th century Pushkin, died. The last days and hours of his life are described in detail in the book of D. Anuchin Alexander Pushkin (1899), in the magazine Russkaya Starina (February, 1901), in the 1929 edition of Conversations with Pushkin.

A crowd of many thousands gathered to say goodbye to the great Russian poet on the last journey because of what A. S. Kashpurev wrote in his work Merits of Alexander Pushkin before the Russian people (1900).