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Alexander Pushkin (Dictionary of World Biography: The 19th Century)

Early Life

Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow to a father who was a tenant of a ministerial steward and to a mother descended from the Abyssinian black who became the adopted godson and personal secretary of Peter the Great. Sergey Lvovich, Alexander’s father, was more interested in drawing rooms and theaters than in his estate, which he left to the mismanagement of his wife, Nadezhda Osipovna Hannibal.

With curly, chestnut-colored hair, Alexander was a sallow, thick-lipped, and dreamy-eyed child. Neglected by his parents, who preferred his younger brother Leo and...

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