Alexander Pushkin
Pushkin was angry that he was still in exile and he wrote many letters to his friends. Many of these letters were later published. He spent a lot of time drinking, gaming and fighting with swords. He fell in love with the daughter of a Count for whom he was working. The Count managed to get Pushkin exiled to his mother's estate near Pskov at the other end of Russia. Pushkin spent two years here. He was lonely, but he studied Russian history and talked to the peasants. The poems he wrote were full of ideas from Russian culture. He wrote one of his major works: Boris Godunov, a drama about a story from Russian history. The composer Modest Mussorgsky later made an opera from it. Boris Godunov was a cruel tsar in the 17th century. Pushkin's play shows that the ordinary people had a lot of power. This made it difficult for Pushkin to get it published.