It is difficult to overestimate the role of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin for Russian literature and art. This genius poet and prose writer is considered the creator of the modern literary Russian language, who left behind many poems, stories, stories and poems. It is hard to believe that all this richest literary legacy was created by a man who was killed at the age of 37. But it is probably impossible to call Georges Dantes the only killer who shot Pushkin in a duel.
The uncomfortable character of the poet
The poet's father, Sergei Lvich Pushkin, came from an old noble family, whose roots go back to the time of Alexander Nevsky, mother Nadezhda Osipovna, nee Hannibal was the granddaughter of the famous "Moor Peter the Great", who received the title of nobility from the hands of Emperor Peter I. The admixture of Ethiopian blood affected not only on the appearance of Alexander Pushkin, but also on his temperament and explosive nature.
Short in stature, mobile, with coarse curly hair, not distinguished by beauty in the conventional sense, Pushkin was, according to the descriptions of his contemporaries, "like a monkey." Independent and proud in character, the poet probably did not flatter himself due to his appearance, although from a young age he enjoyed great success with the ladies. His classmates, with whom he studied together at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, loved and knew him as a sincere and faithful friend, incapable of lying and betrayal, but in the light of him they did not really complain for his sharp tongue and poisonous epigrams, which, thanks to the poet's talent, were really brilliant and accurate and immediately dispersed in the secular living rooms. During his life, Pushkin constantly found himself in situations that were often pumped up by challenges to a duel, the poet's friends, who understood the significance and magnitude of his talent, constantly had to reconcile their rivals.
Modern graphological examination has confirmed the involvement of Georges Dantes's fellow soldiers in writing the vile libel.
Dantes and Pushkin
The poet married at 32 one of the most beautiful women of his time - Natalia Goncharova. The tsar, wanting her to shine at court, bestows upon the poet the position of a chamber junker, more suitable for a young, just starting career, a young man. Pushkin, who is very sensitive to ridicule, thinks that his kamer-junker uniform is becoming something of a buffoonery, but he does not argue against the tsar. His behavior, fervor and vulnerability become the reason for the persecution of the poet by the company of young life-hussars, taken to the court and visiting the same houses where the Pushkin couple. One of them, Georges Dantes, the adopted son of the Dutch envoy Heeckeren, openly begins to court the poet's wife, which in the world was perceived as behavior that compromised her.
After the duel, Dantes was expelled from Russia and lived a long life in France.
Pushkin challenged him to a duel, but the first time the case was hushed up and it did not come to that - Dantes, in order to remove suspicions from himself, even married Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina's sister, Catherine. However, after a while, an anonymous libel was sent to the poet's friends, where Pushkin was given the title of cuckold. Upon learning of this, the poet challenged Heeckeren to a duel, believing that he was the author of the libel, but instead of the old man, his adopted son, Dantes, accepted the challenge. As you know, this duel was the last for Pushkin; on January 21, 1837, he was mortally wounded and died three days later. But the poet was killed not so much by Dantes' bullet as by the lack of spirituality and indifference of high society, which failed to appreciate his talent.
