ABSTRACT
Alexander Pushkin’s social origins theoretically gave him definite privileges of travel out of the country, but those origins should be looked at. Where exactly in Moscow Pushkin was born remains unclear, and has been cropping up as a subject of dispute for a century and a half— as rickety as any Russian history. It is strange but true: Pushkin recalled his early years with reluctance. The Soviet Pushkin scholar Boris Tomashevsky contended that French was a second native language for Pushkin. The first known Pushkin autograph was written in French. As far as his creative work went, it has already been written that “Pushkin set out as a frank imitator of French poetry.” An intelligentsia was developing in Russia, with its own aspirations and hopes for a better time. The spokesmen of official opinion exulted in print in the triumph of Russian arms, and the very young Pushkin was susceptible to the general enthusiasm.
