Philatelic Photograph: Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin - St. Petersburg, Russia

Interesting Places I've Photographed

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin Statue

St. Petersburg, Russia

Topic: Philatelic Photographs

GPS: N59° 56.232; E030° 19.902

Quick Description: 

The statue of Russia's most famous poet stands in front of the Mikhaylovsky Palace now the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

Long Description:

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born into a Russian noble family in Moscow on June 6, 1799. He graduated from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo (now the town of Pushkin) located a few kilometers south of St. Petersburg and spent most of his life as a resident of St. Petersburg. Pushkin is considered to be the greatest of all Russian poets and the founder of the modern Russian literature.

Pushkin published his first poem at age fifteen and continued his writing career his entire life. In 1820, he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila, which was the basis for the opera by Glinka. His verse novel Eugene Onegin was written between 1825 and 1832. It was the inspiration for Tschaikovsky's famous opera of the same name, first performed in 1879. His play Boris Gudunov was made into two operas by Mussorgsky's, first in 1868 - 1869 and a second version on 1871- 1872. His poem The Bronze Horseman is considered a classic of Russian literature and is well known by every Russian school child.

Pushkin died as a result of wounds received in a duel in St. Petersburg on February 10, 1837 at age 37. In 1959, Russia issued a stamp showing the statue of Pushkin in St. Petersburg as part of a series of six stamps depicting statues of famous Russians.