Most Russians would say that Alexander Pushkin (Александр Сергеевич Пушкин) is the father of Russian literature and the greatest Russian poet. Pushkin partially reached his position because of his masterful use of the Russian language – he conclusively showed that Russian was suitable not only for everyday conversation, but also for complicated literary expression. But can you understand it?

To allow you to do this, we have made an Interlinear translation – a unit by unit translation from Russian to English. This is the first published Interlinear translation of Pushkin in the world. Two poems were translated: ‘I remember the magical moment’ and ‘I loved you; love may still be’. The first poem was written before 1825, and the latter one before 1829. Both poems are among the most famous and most well-known of Pushkin’s creations, and they both concern love, and contain a variety of intertwined emotions, cultural and political symbols and allusions to his time. See if you can read them with Interlinear, and also watch the video at the end of each poem to see if you can understand them.