Happy Birthday, Aleksandr Sergeyevich!

On this day in 1799 Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin was born in Moscow. Pushkin, the father of Russian literature and literary Russian as a language, was beloved in his lifetime - when he died as the result of a duel the government feared rioting. Instead, there was national mourning... Ruslan and Lyudmila, Eugene Onegin, The Captain's Daughter, Boris Godunov, and countless poems ...

Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, "Russians know the conceptions of 'homeland' and 'Pushkin' are inseparable. ... To be Russian means to love Pushkin."

Птичка
В чужбине свято наблюдаю
Родной обычай старины:
На волю птичку выпускаю
При светлом празднике весны.

Я стал доступен утешенью;
За что на бога мне роптать,
Когда хоть одному творенью
Я мог свободу даровать!


Little Bird

In a foreign land I faithfully observe
A native rite of olden times:
I liberate a little bird
During the shining fete of spring.

My heart is filled with consolation,
How can I grumble at God's will
If to but one of his creations
I can bestow sweet liberty!

(and, for those who don't read Cyrillic; notes: i=ee, u=oo, o=oh, t'= a soft or palatalized t, ya/ye/yu=y+vowel, as in 'yak' etc)

Ptichka

V chuzhbinye svyato nablyudayu
Rodnoy obychai stariny:
Na vohlyu ptichku vypuskayu
Pri svyetlom prazdnikye vesny..

Ya stal dostupen uteshenyu;
Za shtoh na bohga mnye roptat'?
Kogda hoht' odnomu tvorenyu
Ya mohk svobohdu darohvat'!