The Russian poet and prose writer Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) ranks as the country's greatest poet. He not only brought Russian poetry to its highest excellence but also had a decisive influence on Russian literature in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Aleksandr Pushkin is Russia's national poet. He established the norms of classical Russian versification, and he laid the groundwork for much of the development of Russian prose in the 19th century. His work is distinguished by brilliance of language, compactness, terseness, and objectivity. His poetry is supremely untranslatable, and consequently Pushkin has had less influence on world literature than on Russian literature. He may be described as a romantic in subject matter and a classicist in style and form.

Pushkin was born on May 26, 1799, the son of a family of the middle nobility. On his father's side he was a descendant of one of the oldest lines...