Customer Reviews

Young PushkinA Novel

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This is an amazing historical novel about Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin. The novel takes Pushkin from his childhood to the end of his time in the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, which now has a museum of Pushkin. The writing is amazingly vivid, especially when dealing with the characters. As a Russian historian, I've read a great deal about Pushkin and the great Russian historian N.M. Karamzin, but this book makes them come alive. Tynyanov argues that Pushkin was in love with Karamzin's wife and that she was the unknown addressee of many of his poems. Right or wrong, his description of this platonic relationship is masterful. The only disappointment is that the last section is rougher and has a slight amount of repetition, but you can't blame Tynyanov too much, as he was dying at the time. It's a great loss that he wasn't able to complete the full multi-volume set covering Pushkin's life, but at least we now have this work in English and wonderfully translated too.

If you have even the slightest interest in Russian history or literature, you should treat yourself to this book.

English readers for the first time have access to this wonderful piece of historical fiction by Yury Tynyanov (1894-1943). First published in the 1930s and 1940s in serial form, this is a beloved biography of Russia's greatest poet in novel form. Bursting with a vast array of characters and buzzing with historical detail, this is a vibrant view of the Golden Age of Russian literature, with young Sasha Pushkin, the impetuous genius, whirling at its center. (Reviewed in Russian Life)