page_title: Alexander Pushkin
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Pushkin / Death
caption_attribution_description: Natalia Nikolaevna Pushkina-Lanskaya (née Goncharova), wife of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Painting by Ivan Makarov (1849).
context_page_description: Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.
  Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to Pushkin noble families. His maternal great-grandfather was Central-African-born general Abram Petrovich Gannibal. He published his first poem at the age of 15, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Upon graduation from the Lycee, Pushkin recited his controversial poem "Ode to Liberty", one of several that led to his exile by Tsar Alexander I of Russia. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832.
context_section_description: By the autumn of 1836, Pushkin was falling into greater and greater debt and faced scandalous rumours that his wife was having a love affair. On 4 November he sent a challenge to a duel to Georges d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern. Jacob van Heeckeren, d'Anthès' adoptive father, asked that the duel be delayed by two weeks. With efforts by the poet's friends, the duel was cancelled. On 17 November d'Anthès made a proposal to Natalia Goncharova's (Pushkina's) sister – Ekaterina Goncharova. The marriage did not resolve the conflict. Georges d'Anthès continued to pursue Natalia Goncharova in public, and rumours that d'Anthès had married Natalia's sister just to save her reputation circulated. On 26 January (7 February in the Gregorian calendar) of 1837 Pushkin sent a "highly insulting letter" to Heeckeren. The only answer to that letter could be a challenge to a duel, as Pushkin knew. Pushkin received the formal challenge to a duel through his sister-in-law, Ekaterina Gekkerna, approved by d'Anthès, on the same day through the attaché of the French Embassy, Viscount d'Archiac. 
  Pushkin asked Arthur Magenis, then attaché to the British Consulate-General in Saint Petersburg, to be his second. Magenis did not formally accept, but on 26 January (7 February), approached Viscount d'Archiac to attempt a reconciliation; however, d'Archiac refused to speak with him as he was not yet officially Pushkin's second. Magenis, unable to find Pushkin in the evening, sent him a letter through a messenger at 2 o'clock in the morning, declining to be his second as the possibility of a peaceful settlement had already been quashed, and the traditional first task of the second was to try to bring about a reconciliation.
  The duel with d'Anthès took place on 27 January (8 February) at the Black River, without the presence of a second for Pushkin. D'Anthès fired first, critically wounding Pushkin; the bullet entered at his hip and penetrated his abdomen. D'Anthès was only lightly wounded in the right arm. Two days later, on 29 January (10 February) at 14:45, Pushkin died of peritonitis.
  At Pushkin's wife's request, he was put in the coffin in evening dress – not in chamber-cadet uniform, the uniform provided by the tsar. The funeral service was initially assigned to the St. Isaac's Cathedral, but was moved to Konyushennaya church. Many people attended. After the funeral, the coffin was lowered into the basement, where it stayed until 3 February, when it was removed to Pskov province. Alexander Pushkin was buried on the grounds of the Svyatogorsky monastery in present-day Pushkinskiye Gory, near Pskov, beside his mother. His last home is now a museum.
caption: His widow Natalia Goncharova, 1849
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