Alexander Pushkin “made not only his own, but also strangers love our language”

June 6 is annually celebrated Russian Language Day, established by the United Nations in 2010, and the birthday of the Great Russian poet, the founder of modern Russian literary language, Alexander Pushkin.

The electronic collections of the Presidential Library contain more than 400 different materials illustrating the life and career of the poet. The collection Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) includes books, journal articles, archival affairs, and films containing biographical information; works devoted to the analysis of Pushkin's works and his place in the literary life of society.

The greatest Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, publicist, critic, founder of new Russian literature and language Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow on June 6 (May 26, old style) in 1799.

The memoirs about Alexander by his brother, Leo Pushkin, note that “the passion for poetry appeared in him with the first concepts: at the age of eight, being able to read and write, he composed small comedies and epigrams in French for his teachers”.

In 1811, Alexander entered the Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum - a privileged educational institution that trained noble children "for important parts of the state service". The poet’s lyceum years are reflected by the historian of literature, philologist Alexander Kirpichnikov in his Essays on the History of New Russian Literature (1903): “Pushkin’s natural abilities quickly developed in the lyceum; he read extremely much, and remembered everything once read, perfectly; he was most interested in French and Russian literature and history; he was one of the most diligent collaborators in manuscript lyceum magazines...”

After graduating from the lyceum in 1817, Alexander Pushkin moved to St. Petersburg and was enlisted in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. In 1824, Pushkin was dismissed from service.

In 1830, Pushkin’s repeated matchmaking to Natalya Goncharova was accepted, and in autumn he went to his father Boldino’s Nizhny Novgorod estate to take over the village of Kistenevo, presented by his father for the wedding. This autumn became for Pushkin the famous "Boldino Autumn".

In the spring of 1831 he married in Moscow with Natalia Goncharova. Soon, the young moved to St. Petersburg. “I am married and happy”, he writes to Pletnev in a few days. My only desire is that nothing in my life changes: I won’t wait for the best. This condition is so new for me that it seems that I have been reborn”, - Kirpichnikov conveys the poet’s words.

Pushkin’s desire was not fulfilled. “On November 4, 1836, he received 3 copies of an anonymous message that brought him to the Order of the Cuckolds and, as he was convinced, hinted at the persistent courtship of his wife, the cavalry guard lieutenant bar. Dantes, a handsome and clever foreigner…”, the author continues. Alexander Pushkin challenged Georges Dantes to a duel. February 8 (January 27), 1837, when the duel took place, Pushkin was mortally wounded.

February 10 (January 29), the poet died. He is buried in the cemetery of the Svyatogorsky monastery in the Pskov province, near the village of Mikhailovskoye.

Behind the milestones of the short life of Alexander Pushkin is the immense element of his work. “...Pushkin is the most precious thing Russia has”, - the literary critic Julius Eichenwald wrote about Pushkin’s poetry in the book “Pushkin” (1916). - ...The Russian word has never created such a feast, such a bright holiday, it never reached such exultation and triumph, as in this radiant work, which translated into sound all the goodness and all the beauty of the universe. <...> The divine echo of the divine voice...".

“For the first time in the works of Pushkin, the Russian language found a worthy expression and appeared in all its greatness. The poetic genius of Pushkin was, one might say, a friend of the genius of the Russian language”, - these words of Nikolai Nekrasov were included in the collection of articles “Alexander Pushkin” (1905), compiled by the literary historian Vasily Pokrovsky.

Thanks to Pushkin's poetry and prose, the Russian literary language was born, and “language is the unifying force of the people”, - wrote publicist and publisher Mikhail Katkov in an article from the collection “Alexander Pushkin in its artistic, historical and public meaning” (1901) of the writer Nikolai Pokrovsky. - Pushkin made not only his own, but also strangers love our language...”