The Enigmatic Pushkin

For a quarter of a century, the well-known Russian writer V. V. Veresaev (1867–1945) devoted himself to an in-depth study of A. S. Pushkin’s life and work. In addition to books by the writer that are widely known to the general readership and have been reissued many times in recent years—“Pushkin in Life” and “Pushkin’s Companions”—the author’s pen also includes a popular outline of the poet’s life and work, several dozen articles and stories that are an original and integral part of Veresaev’s “Pushkiniana,” without which the famous “Pushkin in Life” cannot be understood and fully appreciated.

Almost all works included in this collection were not published from the 1920s to the 1940s. Over the decades that have passed, they have not lost their value: they are filled with non-traditional, sometimes paradoxical, but always profound reflections on the poet’s life and unexpected interpretations of his work. And if “Pushkin in Life” is a montage of facts and documents, then the works published here allow you to get to know Veresaev’s thoughts about the luminary of Russian letters directly.