Alexander Pushkin, poet and author, founded the literature of the Russian language with epic and lyric poems, plays, novels, and short stories. Pushkin was born on June 6, 1799 in Moscow. He demonstrated an early gift for writing poetry, and by 1820 he published his Ruslan and Ludmila, which earned him a reputation as being one of Russia's most promising poetic talents. He began his most famous work, Eugene Onegin in 1823 and in 1824, he wrote Boris Godunov, a Russian historical tragedy in Shakespearean tradition.—G. Forman