"Demon" 等 by Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (/ˈpʊʃkɪn/;^[1] Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин, tr. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr sʲɪˈrɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn] ( listen); 6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era^[2] who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet^[3][4][5][6] and the founder of modern Russian literature.^[7][8]


底下是舊俄曆的誤會例：

(Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) are terms sometimes used with dates to indicate that the calendar convention used at the time described is different from that in use at the time the document was being written. )

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin died in St. Petersburg, Russia on this day in 1837 (aged 37). Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, and died two days later.

"What good is my name to you?
It will die, like the melancholy sound
Of a wave breaking on a distant shore,
Like night’s noises in the dense forest.
On the album page
It will leave a dead trace, like
The pattern of an epitaph on a tombstone
In an unknown language.
What good is it? Long forgotten
In new, stormy emotions,
It will not evoke in your soul
Peaceful, tender memories.
But... on a day of grief, in the silence
Pronounce it, pining;
Say: someone remembers me,
There is in the world a heart, in which I live..."
— Alexander Pushkin (5 January 1830) as quoted in PUSHKIN: A BIOGRAPHY by T. J. Binyon

In the course of his short, dramatic life, Aleksandr Pushkin gave Russia not only its greatest poetry–including the novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin–but a new literary language. He also gave it a figure of enduring romantic allure–fiery, restless, extravagant, a prodigal gambler and inveterate seducer of women. Having forged a dazzling, controversial career that cost him the enmity of one tsar and won him the patronage of another, he died at the age of thirty-eight, following a duel with a French officer who was paying unscrupulous attention to his wife.
In his magnificent, prizewinning Pushkin, T. J. Binyon lifts the veil of the iconic poet’s myth to reveal the complexity and pathos of his life while brilliantly evoking Russia in all its nineteenth-century splendor. Combining exemplary scholarship with the pace and detail of a great novel, Pushkin elevates biography to a work of art. READ an excerpt here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/13660/pushkin-by-t-j-…/

"Demon" by Alexander Pushkin

In bygone days when life's array -
The sweet song of the nightingale
And maidens' eyes, the rustling woods - 
Still left a fresh impression on me,
When loftiness of feeling,
And freedom, glory, love
Artistic inspiration
So deeply stirred my blood,
My times of hope were cast in shade
And pleasure dimmed by longing,
For it was then an evil genius
Began to pay me secret visits.
Our meetings were quite dolorous:
His smile, his glance mysterious,
His venom-filled and caustic sermons
Poured frozen poison in my soul.
With endless slandering remarks
He tempted Providence;
He claimed that beauty's but a dream;
Felt scorn for inspiration;
He had no faith in love or freedom;
He looked on life with ridicule-
And in the whole of nature
He did not wish to praise a single thing.

*****

"The clock of doom had struck as fated;
the poet, without a sound,
let fall his pistol on the ground."
--from "Eugene Onegin" (1833)