Happy Birthday, Alexander Sergeevich!

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." And 19th century poet Apollon Grigoryev wrote, simply, "Пушкин - это наше все (Pushkin is our everything)".

I've given you Winter Evening and Winter Morning before; this year, a short one, suitable for memorizing.

Птичка

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

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


Little Bird

In a foreign land I follow
A custom ancient in my own:
To freedom I return a swallow
In this bright rite of spring.

So I achieve some consolation;
Why should I complain of God
If to but one of his creation
I may sweet liberty bestow!