Pushkin

Description

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's preeminence as the father of Russian literature is undisputed. Lyric poet, writer of ironic fairy tales, and the author of the verse novel Evgeny Onegin, Pushkin led a life as dramatic as any story he invented, filled with political censorship, unrequited love, dramatic duels, but most of all, brilliant artistic intensity. Elaine Feinstein's discerning new biography reveals a man of reckless ebullience whose unruly behavior concealed an enduring loneliness. Born in 1799, the child of a feckless aristocrat and a descendant of the African slave who became a favorite of Peter the Great, Pushkin described his loveless childhood as intolerable. His perception of himself as ugly derived from features inherited from his black great-grandfather; nevertheless, he pursued love affairs with some of the most beautiful women of his time. When he was only twenty-one, his liberal poems led to banishment in southern Russia where, isolated and bored, he began to write feverishly. In his thirties, Pushkin's marriage to the seventeen-year-old beauty Natalya Goncharova brought him unexpected solace, but it was Natalya's flirtation with the Frenchman d'Anthes that led to the duel in which Pushkin lost his life.

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