The Queen of Spades

Aleksander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling-mixing drama, romance, and satire-associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. He gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals; in the early 1820s he clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. While under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov: A Drama in Verse. Critics consider many of his works masterpieces, such as the poem The Bronze Horseman and the drama The Stone Guest. He also wrote The Daughter of the Commandant, Marie: A Story of Russian Love and The Queen of Spades.