This volume presents a chronological biography of Alexander Pushkin, often held to be Russia’s national poet and writer. Lotman pays special attention to the development of Pushkin’s social and political thought throughout the poet’s life, painting a picture of the poet as having been deeply in tune with and even involved in the most pressing socio-political challenges of his age, such as the issue of constitutional monarchy and revolution through his association with various members of the Decembrist movement, the issue of serfdom, and his struggle for personal, creative, and financial freedom as a writer who was under constant public scrutiny and state surveillance. Lotman also fascinatingly describes the deliberate measures Pushkin undertook in his own life to shape the public’s perception of him, essentially treating his life and personal mythology as a work of art in itself.

Yuri Lotman was an eminent Soviet literary scholar and cultural historian. Lotman was the cornerstone of a storied faculty at the University of Tartu. Perhaps most widely known today for his pioneering theoretical work in semiotics, Lotman was also a renowned Pushkin scholar and historian of 19th century Russia.