During this southern period, his ‘Byronic’ narrative poems The Caucasian Captive (1821) and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1824) are published.

1823

Begins his novel in verse Eugene Onegin on 9 May.

1824

Writes narrative poem The Gypsies. After further conflict with state authorities he is dismissed from the service and confined to his family’s estate at Mikhailovskoe, where he spends two more years in exile.

1825

Chapter I of Eugene Onegin published. He completes his first major verse drama, Boris Godunov. Death of Alexander I and accession of Nicholas I. Decembrist uprising (14 December), in which several of the poet’s friends participated, takes place while Pushkin is still absent from the capital.

1826–31

Freed from exile by the new Tsar Nicholas I (September 1826) and permitted to return to Moscow, he resumes dissipated life. Nicholas makes himself the poet’s personal censor.

1826

Poems of Alexander Pushkin, Part I published.

1827

The narrative poem The Robber Brothers is published. He begins the prose novel, The Moor of Peter the Great (never completed), an account of the life and career of his great-grandfather, Abram Hannibal.

1828

Chapters 4 and 5 of Eugene Onegin published. Pushkin is placed under surveillance after the dissemination in manuscript of the poem ‘André Chénier’. He is further investigated in connection with his blasphemous poem ‘The Gabrieliad’. The poet at first denies his authorship of the poem but eventually admits it in a letter to the tsar.

1829

Publication of the narrative poem Poltava, celebrating the victory of Peter the Great over Charles XII of Sweden, and of Poems of Alexander Pushkin, Part II. He travels to Georgia and the Caucasus and records the experience in A Journey to Erzurum. Election to membership in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

1830

Chapter 7 of Eugene Onegin published. Pushkin becomes engaged to Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova of a once prosperous family of paper manufacturers. While stranded by a cholera epidemic at his country estate of Boldino he enjoys an especially productive autumn: he completes the final Chapter (8) of Eugene Onegin; writes The Tales of Belkin (prose stories); finishes The Little Tragedies (The Miserly Knight, Mozart and Salieri, The Stone Guest, A Feast in Time of Plague); writes The Little House in Kolomna, The Tale of the Priest and his Worker Balda, and more than thirty lyric poems. December: Boris Godunov becomes available in printed form (in advance of the official publication date, January 1831). Crisis point in rebellion of Poles against Russian rule; Russian troops on brink of intervention.

1831

January: five years after the completion of his play, Pushkin is finally permitted by the authorities to publish a revised version of Boris Godunov. Marries Natalya Goncharova (18 February). Writes The Tale of Tsar Saltan. By order of the Emperor Pushkin is readmitted to a nominal position in the Foreign Office with an annual stipend and is appointed official historiographer.

1832

Poems of Alexander Pushkin, Part III published. Birth of his first child, Mariya. Begins prose novel Dubrovsky (never completed); works on his drama, Rusalka. Elected to membership in the Russian Academy.

1833

Eugene Onegin published in book form. Birth of son Alexander. Travels to the Orenburg and Kazan districts in connection with his research for A History of the Pugachev Rebellion. Writes The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, the narrative poem The Bronze Horseman, the short story The Queen of Spades. The finances of the Pushkin family, including those of the poet’s father, are in a critical state; they nearly lose the family property to creditors.

1834

Having been appointed, to his annoyance, as Gentleman of the Chamber by the tsar, Pushkin leads a rather unhappy life in court circles, is plagued by mounting debts and by his jealousy of his wife’s admirers. Andzhelo, based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, is published. He conducts research for a history of the reign of Peter the Great (the work was never completed, although his extensive material was published some hundred years after the poet’s death).

1835

Birth of son Grigory. Poems of Alexander Pushkin, Parts III and IV published.

1836

Becomes editor of the journal The Contemporary, in which his historical novel The Captain’s Daughter appears. Death of Pushkin’s mother (29 March).