Pushkin was indeed the sun of Russian poetry. He injected life into Russian literature, winning the status of Russia’s major poet. He was then, and he still is today.

For Russians Pushkin’s poetry and prose is a definitive cornerstone of national culture. His writings created modern Russian, and the language of a nation is probably the main trait that distinguishes it from all other nations. 

Alexander Pushkin was also a poet of genius. His ability to express general truths in short, clever sentences has no parallel. Many of his expressions have become part of the speech even of people who may not have read his poetry carefully. They have become part of everyday language, absorbed by every generation almost in the cradle.

Pushkin wrote for all ages – fairy tales for children, love poems for teenagers, philosophical dramas for adults. And in all he wrote he had something significant to say.

The poet is considered the father of the new Russian literature. He gave a start to nearly all the modern genres of Russian prose – from essays and travel notes to the historical novel and the philosophical story. His output ranges all the way from lyrical and romantic verses and poems to the profound realistic writings of his later years. In many he raised issues never before touched upon in Russian literature but which after him became central to that literature. For example, relations between populace and rule in the drama “Boris Godunov”, the individual and society in the novel-in-verse “Eugene Onegin”, the fate of the little man in the “Tales of Belkin”, the grip of money on people in the “Queen of Spades”. And in his “Small Tragedies” Pushkin analyses love, death, talent and other philosophical problems. 

Pushkin must also be credited with inspiring many Russian operas and romances. Nearly all that is finest in these two genres of Russian classical music has made use of his plots and verse. Just recall such operas as “Boris Godunov” by Modest Mussorgsky, “Ruslan and Lyudmila” by Mikhail Glinka, “The Queen of Spades” and “Eugene Onegin” by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, who lived after Pushkin, defined his role in Russian culture in these words: “Pushkin is the father of Russian art just as Lomonosov is the father of Russian science. The seeds of all that later developed in nearly all the arts are to be found in Pushkin.”

Besides his remarkable poetic talent, Alexander Pushkin had an overwhelming curiosity about people and events beyond the borders of Russia. This is all the more remarkable because in the early 19th century there were none of the news media of today that could have wetted such curiosity. The poet was so eager to absorb information that he bought book after book and even ran into considerable debt. After his death his library was found to contain a remarkable range of books relating to the culture of many nations. Pushkin never traveled outside Russia. He received all his information from books. Today the world is as interested in reading Pushkin just as Pushkin at the beginning of the 19th century was interested in reading about the world. And though the Russian poet is known to be difficult to translate, his writings have been translated into a great number of the world’s languages.