Alexander Pushkin

As part of the Great Russian Writers series produced by Kultur Video, this documentary explores the life and work of the famed Russian poet and political theorist Alexander Pushkin. Beginning with Pushkin's birth in Moscow in 1799, through his education at the Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo (which was later renamed Pushkin), the film explores the influence that his aristocratic upbringing and early military service had on his early work. During his initial military appointment, the young poet became entrenched in a social scene that he later satarized, in what many critics call his most influential work, Eugene Ogedin. He became a sort of spokesperson for the literary radicals of the time, displeasing many government officials and causing him to be chased from Tsarskoye Selo to Kishinev. His stay in Kishinev was shortlived due to his continuing involvement in calling for the class system to be reformed and he was forced to move to Odessa. Once again he was forced to move and was exiled to his mother's rural estate. Later protected by the Tsar, who fancied the poet's romantic style, Pushkin was married, but forced into debt and eventually into a duel that led to a mortal wound that caused his death. The film deftly recounts these events, commenting on how they effected his style and became the foundation for such works as The Prisoner of Caucasus, The Robber Brothers and his famous political tract In the Wasteland Sower of True Freedom.