Pushkin’s Contribution to Russian Drama
A look at the dramatic works produced by Russia’s greatest poet
Alexander Sergeivich Pushkin (1799–1837), Russia’s first and greatest national poet, was born in Moscow, the son of a civil servant.
He was educated privately, and at the age of 8, according to his brother, wrote little plays in French, which he acted with his sister. At 15 he included among his favourite writers the French dramatists Moliere and Racine, but two of the greatest influences on him were Byron and Shakespeare. He valued the former for his progressive romanticism and the latter for his superb characterization and the profundity of his philosophy. He once compared Shakespeare and Moliere thus:
Characters created by Shakespeare are not types of such and such a passion, or such and such a vice, as with Moliere, but living beings, filled with many passions, many vices . . . Moliere’s miser is miserly and no more; Shakespeare’s miser is miserly, keenwitted, vengeful, ambitious, sagacious.
It was under the influence of Shakespeare that Pushkin started work on his great drama Boris Godunov. He had already realized that Russia had no truly national drama, only an imitation of the neo-classic French school, and that it could only be created by returning to Russian themes and Russian folklore…