June 6 — Pushkin Day of Russia and the Russian Language Day

🔍 Did you know that…

Pushkin was not only a poet but also a serious historical researcher. Pushkin's historicism and his political views were shaped under the influence of a turbulent century, including the French Revolution. Pushkin's personal library contained about four hundred books on history.

The novel Eugene Onegin reflects many events from the poet's own life. Recalling the 1820s, Pushkin writes:

"The surf of billows, and the cliffs
And of a haughty maid the ideal,
And nameless sufferings — the gifts
Of my young fancy's fervent zeal…"
(translated by Henry Spalding)

Biography becomes not just a fact but a compelling fact. The Raevsky family took Pushkin to the Caucasus ("the cliffs") and to Crimea ("the surf of billows"). Had this not happened, Pushkin might have created these compelling facts himself.

V.G. Belinsky considered the novel Eugene Onegin (1833) Pushkin's central work, reflecting the poet's personality, worldview, and ideals. Eugene Onegin is a historical poem; each character expresses a certain facet of social existence. Belinsky was the first to call the novel "an encyclopedia of Russian life" and acknowledged that "before Pushkin we had poets, but not a single poet-artist."

In his earliest youthful works — Ruslan and Ludmila, The Robber Brothers, The Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai — readers and contemporaries saw not just new poetic works but completely new poetry, previously unknown in the Russian language.

Having transformed the Russian poetic language and revolutionized dramaturgy, Pushkin increasingly turned his thoughts to the development of Russian literary prose.

Alexander Sergeyevich proved himself not only as a thinker and poet-artist but also as a researcher deeply interested in history. His interest in Russian history accompanied the poet throughout his life and found expression, for example, in such works as The Moor of Peter the Great (1827) and The History of the Village of Goryukhino (1830).

In the early 1830s, after the brutal suppression of a revolt by military settlers in Staraya Russa, Pushkin returned to "troubled" times in Russian history. The figure of the rebellious Pugachev increasingly fascinated him. Pushkin explored this theme on two levels: as a professional historian in The History of Pugachev (1833–1834) and as a writer in The Captain's Daughter (1836). The historical work came first. Pushkin meticulously gathered facts and testimonies. He traveled through several provinces where Pugachev was still remembered, where people who had known him were still alive, and where legends about him were passed down by word of mouth. All of this was recorded by the poet-historian and passed on to posterity with the utmost objectivity, precision and thoroughness. Only then did Pushkin turn to the artistic embodiment of the theme.

📖 Pushkin Through the Eyes of Philosophers and Thinkers

Considerable attention to the work of A.S. Pushkin was paid by philosophers and thinkers.

B.P. Vysheslavtsev, in his work "Pushkin's Liberty. (Individual Freedom)", wrote about the poet's genius for creatively expressing the multifaceted nature of freedom. Pushkin was granted both "the freedom of prophetic words…" and the gift "to burn people's hearts with the word."

M.A. Maslin writes about Pushkin's spiritual influence on researchers studying the problem of national identity.

In his famous "Pushkin Speech" at the unveiling of the monument to A.S. Pushkin in 1880, F.M. Dostoevsky spoke of Pushkin's "universal responsiveness" and his ability to understand the spiritual world of other peoples while maintaining a deep connection with Russian culture.

📚 What to read in the library?

• Academic collected works of A.S. Pushkin
• Studies of the poet's work
• Books on Russian history of the Pushkin era
• Publications about the life and creative path of the great poet.

A special pride of our university is the "Rare Book Museum" collection. It holds a lifetime edition of A.S. Pushkin's poem "The Robber Brothers" from 1827 — a unique monument of Russian book culture.

✨ Come to the library for inspiration! Even during the most intense exam period, it is important to remember that the Russian language is not just an academic discipline but a great cultural heritage uniting generations of readers, researchers and creators.

Happy Pushkin Day of Russia and Russian Language Day!