6 June: Aleksandr Pushkin

Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian poet and author, was born on this date in 1799. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was of African descent on his mother's side. His mother's great grandfather was a black African page called Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was brought over to Russia as a slave, and given as a gift to Peter the Great. Later, Gannibal became a military engineer, then governor of Reval and finally Général en Chef (the 3rd most senior army rank) and was in charge of the building of sea forts and canals in Russia. Abram was said to be from Ethiopia, although researchers eventually concluded his birthplace was in modern day Cameroon.
2. Pushkin didn't have a happy childhood. His mother preferred his brother and barely spoke to young Aleksandr at all. His father was prone to fits of temper. The person Aleksandr was closest to growing up was his nanny, Arina Rodionovna. Pushkin dedicated a number of poems to Arina and it's thought she was the inspiration for Tatiana’s nanny in Eugene Onegin. On top of that, he was a chubby and awkward child with darker than average skin. He considered himself to be ugly. He wasn't good at sport or academic subjects, other than language.
3. Pushkin spoke several languages – his library contained books in 14 languages. As a child, he spoke French, the language of the Russian court at the time, but learned Russian from his nanny. Pushkin was the first Russian writer to write almost exclusively in Russian rather than French.
4. He published his first poem when he was 15, and by the time he left school he'd written about 130 poems. Most of them weren't published because they expressed anti-establishment political views. In 1820 Pushkin published his first narrative poem, Russlan and Ludmilla. He was a prolific writer who penned not only poems but novels, dramas and even fairy tales.
5. Pushkin was a member of political group The Decembrists, who campaigned for fairer laws and more rights for the peasants. The fact that he held these views, and wrote in the peasant language put him in danger. He narrowly escaped being executed or sent to Siberia, although he did spend six years in exile in the south of Russia.
6. He was 166 cm (5′ 5″) tall with pale blue eyes a protruding jaw and unruly curly Hair. He wasn't classically handsome, and knew it – he once described himself as "a true ape by his face." Nevertheless, he was a hit with the ladies and had plenty of affairs. According to some estimates he had over 100 lovers during his lifetime.
7. When he was 27, he decided it was time to find a wife, and proposed to Natalia Goncharova, who was 16 and said to be one of the most beautiful women in Moscow. Her main concern before she accepted him was that the Tsarist government might persecute him and she got assurances from the government that they'd leave him alone before she said yes. She was known for being a party girl and not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She once told Pushkin, "Lord how you bore me with your poetry." She was more interested in going to balls, dancing till dawn and flirting. They had four children. One of them, Natalia, married Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau morganatically and was granted the title of Countess of Merenberg. Her granddaughter Nadejda married Prince Philip's uncle.
8. Their wedding was delayed when he went home to the family estate to claim some land he was due to inherit on his marriage. It was meant to be a flying visit, but he ended up staying for three months when the village imposed a lockdown because of cholera. (We can sympathise.) He made the best of it, though, and did quite a bit of writing. He finished his novel, Eugene Onegin, and a short story collection, The Belkin Tales, and a collection of plays called Little Tragedies. He also wrote over 30 poems.
9. Aside from writing, Pushkin's favourite pastimes were gambling and duelling. He wasn't particularly good at gambling and often got into debt, triggering frantic writing binges to pay the bills. You could argue he was better at duelling since he took part in at least 29 and survived most of them. He'd to practice for duels by shooting every day and walking around carrying an 18-pound weight to strengthen his firing arm. He would challenge people pretty much at the drop of a hat, for any perceived slight of his honour. He once duelled someone over the choice of Music at a ball.
10. When he was 37, his luck ran out. At a party thrown by the Tsar, a dashing and handsome young Frenchman named Geoges d'Anthés took a fancy to Pushkin's wife and spent a lot of time dancing with her and flirting with her. His attentions pretty much amounted to stalking and Natalia, it's said, although she flirted, remained faithful to her husband. At the resulting duel, Pushkin was fatally wounded and died 36 hours later. Conspiracy theorists believe that the whole thing might have been set up by the Tsar, with whom Pushkin had a difficult relationship, in order to get rid of him.

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