Aleksandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin was born in 1799 in Moscow. He began writing poetry at a young age and was expelled from St Petersburg in 1820 for composing revolutionary epigrams. He also lost his job in the civil service in 1824 because of his writing,. He married Natalia Goncharova in 1832 and died in a duel defending her honour in 1837. He is considered Russia's greatest poet but in the last part of his career focussed his attention on writing his prose tales.