Alexander Pushkin

Biography:

Alexander Pushkin was born on May 26, 1799 and died January 29, 1837. He was a famous Russian poet from St. Petersburg, Russia. By his father, he was a descendent of Russian nobility and by his mother, he was related to an African lord. When Pushkin was born, almost all of their family money was gone and they were moved to a lower social class, minor nobility. His mother often left him as a young child. He went to a private school for Russian Nobility from 1811-1817. Surprisingly, he was not a very good student but he did excel in French and Russian Literature. While still at school, young Pushkin wrote about 130 poems from 1814-1817. Most of these were not published because they were deemed inappropriate. In 1920, he was exiled to southern Russia because of the inappropriateness of his works. While in southern Russia, Pushkin became a heavy drinker. He still wrote poems, and they made him only a little bit of money, not enough to support him. He also worked as a government worker while there. Finally, Nicolas I, the czar of Russia, decided to give Pushkin a chance. He himself decided that he would censor Pushkin’s poems and then publish them. He did not write much after 1830. In 1831, he married Nathalie Goncharova. They had 3 children together, but were not happy. Goncharova had other relationships which made Pushkin jealous. He fought with one of her lovers and he was mortally wounded. He died 3 days after the fight, and many people mourned his death. He was thirty- eight when he died. Pushkin was a great influence to Russian writers after him.

Poems:

"My Beauty, Do Not Sing For Me"
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/pushkin/pushkin_ind.html

“The Dream”
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/pushkin/pushkin_ind.html

“To My Friends”
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/pushkin/pushkin_ind.html

Links about him:

http://www.petersburg-russia.com/

Sources:

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/alexander_pushkin/biography

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~pleckesg/Pushkin/Bio.html

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский in Russian) was born on November 11, 1821 in Moscow, Russia. His father was a doctor at a hospital in one of the roughest areas in Moscow and was also known as a terrible alcoholic. Dostoyevsky's mother died from tuberculosis in 1837, followed by his father who died in 1839 of unknown causes, which have been debated.

Dostoyevsky was educated at the St Petersburg Academy of Military Engineering, which prepared him for a military career, where he was made a lieutenant. All during this time he had been writing, and was identified as being part of the "Petrashevsky Circle," which was a group of underground intellectuals who were persecuted by the Czar Nicholas I. On November 16, 1849, Dostoyevsky received the death sentence after having been in prison for several months. Instead of being killed, he was put through a "mock execution" and then exiled to Siberia in 1854.
After having spent several years in Siberia, Dostoyevsky moved back to St Petersburg, where he continued writing his books. He was known as one of the founders and main authors of the existentialism movement.
He died February 9, 1881 after having a seizure, in which his lung hemorrhaged, killing him. He was buried in St Petersburg. The inscription on his tomb reads, "Verily, Verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit," which can be found in his last book, The Brothers Karamazov.



















^Dostoyevsky's tomb at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery

Links:

Here is a link to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story- A Christmas Tree and a Wedding http://www.classicreader.com/book/2169/1/

Here's a link to a YOUTUBE video about Fyodor Dostoyevsky!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02cgTrndO_k&feature=PlayList&p=1A526031386C5A86&index=0&playnext=1

General information about Dostoyevsky
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/dostoevskybio.html#BiographicalInfoEssay

http://home.swipnet.se/~w-15266/cultur/fyodor/

http://www.fmdostoyevsky.com/

Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov was a famous poet and novelist. Lermontov was born on October 3rd, 1842 in Moscow, Russia. However, he was raised by his grandmother in a city called Tarkchany until his was 14 years old. He then moved back to Moscow and attended Moscow State University where he began writing poetry. Later, around 1832, he was expelled from MSU for "disciplinary reasons" so he moved to a military school called St. Petersburg. By 1832 he had already written 200 lyric poems, 10 long poems, and 3 plays.

Lermontov’s first verse narrative was Khadzhi Abrek. Maskarad is supposed to be his best drama and it is about “a bracelet, mistaken identities, and jealousy”. At the end the wife is poisoned by her husband with ice cream that has been poisoned. A Hero of Our Time is a collection of stories and tales and is considered to be the “first Russian novel of psychological

realism” (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mihaille.htm). All the stories center around one hero, Grigorii Pechorin, who feels his life is “empty” and insignificant. His most widely known poem is Demon (1842) which is about an angel who falls in love with a human woman and it has themes of atheism in it.

He was exiles twice in his lifetime because of his “libertarian views” (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mihaille.htm). One of the times he was exiled was because of a duel with a French ambassador’s son. He was sent to the black sea. In 1841, an army officer, Nikolai Martynov, was offended by one of lermontov’s jokes and challenged him to a duel. It took place at the “foot of Mashuk mountain” (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Mikhail-Lermontov#Tragic_death_and_the_aftermath) and Lermontov died. Most of his work was published after he died.

Sources:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mihaille.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Mikhail-Lermontov#Tragic_death_and_the_aftermath
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/russia/mikhail_lermontov.htm