Born in Votkinsk, Russian Empire on May 7, 1840;
died in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire on November 6, 1893

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky enjoyed tremendous fame during his lifetime as a composer of symphonic music and ballets. His operas have achieved a steadily growing popularity outside of Russia. The libretto for Eugene Onegin was largely put together by the composer himself, with help from his brother Modest (1850–1916) and others. The source of the libretto is the mock-epic poem of the same name by Pushkin (1799–1837), whose position in Russian literature can be compared only to that of Shakespeare in English. Pushkin’s body of work is marked by a wide range of tone and style, and his writings have been the source of many other Russian operas of note (such as Boris Godunov and Le Coq d’Or). Tchaikovsky specifically chose the most emotional and dramatic moments from Pushkin’s poem and called his work “lyric scenes,” emphasizing the episodic, rather than the strictly narrative, nature of his libretto.

Born in Moscow, Russian Empire on June 6, 1799;
died in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire on February 10, 1837

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born in 1799 in Moscow into a cultured but poor aristocratic family. On his father’s side, he was a descendant of an ancient noble family and on his mother’s, he was a great-great-grandson of Abraham Hannibal, who served under Peter the Great (and about whom Pushkin wrote in his tale: The Moor of Peter the Great). He was brought up by Russian nursemaids and French tutors and governesses, from whom he learned to speak and write French at a very early age. He learned Russian from household serfs and from his nanny. The influence of his studies of French and English literature, and in particular Voltaire, Shakespeare, and Byron, and his deep attachment to the Russian countryside and its legends and fairy tales are clearly felt in his literary output.

Pushkin’s first major work was Ruslan and Ludmilla (1820), a kind of fairy tale in verse based on Russian folk tales told to him by his grandmother (in French!). His most important works include Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse; the verse dramas Boris Godunov, Poltava, The Bronze Horseman, Mozart and Salieri; the poem The Gypsies; and the prose works, The Captain’s Daughter, and The Queen of Spades.

Pushkin was killed in duel in St. Petersburg at the age of 38 defending the honour of his wife.