Eugene Onegin

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1880 (Ithaca, NY, 1989). Magarshack, D., Pushkin: A Biography (London, 1967). Mirsky, D., Pushkin (London, 1926; repr. New York, 1963). Nabokov, V., Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Pushkin,

Translated from the Russian with a Commentary, 4 vols. (New York,

1964; rev. edn. Princeton, 1975). Proffer, C. (ed. and tr.), The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin

(Bloomington, Ind. 1969). Richards, D., and Cockrell, C. (eds.), Russian Views of Pushkin

(Oxford, 1976). Sandler, S., Distant Pleasures: Alexander Pushkin and the Writing of

Exile (Stanford, Ca., 1989). Shaw, J. (d.), The Letters of Alexander Pushkin (Bloomington, Ind. 1963). ------Pushkin's Rhymes (Madison, Wis., 1974).

Shaw, J. Pushkin: A Concordance to the Poetry (Columbus, Oh., 1985).

Simmons, E., Pushkin (New York, 1964).

Tertz, A. (Sinyavsky), Strolls with Pushkin, tr. C. Nepomnyashchy

and S. Yastremski (New Haven, Conn., 1993). Todd, W., Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin (Cambridge,

Mass., 1986). Troyat, H., Pushkin, tr. N. Amphoux (London, 1974). Vickery, W., Pushkin: Death of a Poet (Bloomington, Ind., 1968).

------Alexander Pushkin (New York, 1970; rev. edn. New York, 1992).

Wolff, t., Pushkin on Literature (London, 1971).

A CHRONOLOGY OF ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH PUSHKIN

(all dates are old style)

1799 Born 26 May in Moscow. On his father's side Pushkin was descended from a somewhat impoverished but ancient aristocratic family. The poet's maternal greatgrandfather, Abram Hannibal, was an African princeling (perhaps Abyssinian) who had been taken hostage as a boy by the Turkish sultan. Brought eventually to Russia and adopted by Peter the Great, he became a favourite of the emperor and under subsequent rulers enjoyed a distinguished career in the Russian military service. All his life Pushkin retained great pride in his lineage on both sides of the family.

1800-11 Entrusted in childhood to the care of governesses and French tutors, Pushkin was largely ignored by his parents. He did, however, avail himself of his father's extensive library and read widely in French literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His mastery of contemporary Russian speech owes much to his early contact with household serfs, especially with his nurse, Arina Rodionovna.

1811-17 Attends Lyce at Tsarskoe Selo near St Petersburg, an academy newly established by Emperor Alexander I for the education of young noblemen and their preparation for government service. During these school years he writes his earliest surviving verse. Pushkin's poetic talent was recognized early and admired by prominent Russian writers, including the poets Derzhavin and Zhukovsky and the historian Karamzin.

1817-20 Appointed to a sinecure in the Department of Foreign Affairs, he leads a dissipated life in St Petersburg.

Writes satirical epigrams and circulates in manuscript form mildly seditious verse that incurs the displeasure of Emperor Alexander I. His first narrative poem, the mock epic Ruslan and Lyudmila, is published in 1820 and enjoys great success. 18204 Arrested for his liberal writings and exiled to service in the south of Russia (Ekaterinoslav, Kishinev, Odessa), he travels in the Caucasus, Crimea, Bessarabia. During this 'Byronic period' he composes his 'southern poems', including The Prisoner of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

1823        Begins Eugene Onegin on 9 May (first chapter published in 1825).

1824        Writes narrative poem The Gypsies. After further conflict with the authorities he is dismissed from the service.

1824-6 Lives in exile for two more years at family estate of Mikhailovskoe.

1825        Writes verse drama Boris Godunov. Decembrist Revolt, in which several of the poet's friends participated, takes place while Pushkin is still absent from the capital.

1826-31 Pardoned by new Czar Nicholas I (September 1826) and allowed to return to Moscow, he resumes dissipated living. Continuing problems with censorship and growing dissatisfaction with the court and autocracy.

1827        Begins prose novel The Moor of Peter the Great (never completed), an account of the life and career of his ancestor Abram Hannibal.

1828        Writes narrative poem Poltava celebrating the victory of Peter the Great over Charles XII of Sweden.

1830 While stranded by a cholera epidemic at his country estate of Boldino he enjoys an especially productive autumn: effectively completes Eugene Onegin; writes The Tales of Belkin (prose stories); finishes 'Little

Tragedies': The Covetous Knight, Mozart and Salieri, The Stone Guest, Feast in Time of Plague.

1831 Marries Natalya Goncharova on 18 February; settles in St Petersburg; appointed official historiographer. Finally abandons work on Eugene Onegin, which has occupied him for more than eight years.