Reading of Alexander Pushkin winter poems to be held at Dreamers Garden on Dec. 22
Press release from Maria Huff Edwards
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – This coming Sunday, December 22, 2024, at 5 p.m., there will be a READING OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN winter poems in Dreamers Garden (920 N.W. Fourth Street).
These annual readings started as a collaboration between Russian-born Nataliya Lebedeva and Maria Huff Edwards, the Founder of Dreamers Garden. The first reading took place on June 5, 2013. Nataliya had come to Dreamers Garden for the first time a few months earlier on April 21, 2013, for the Feria de Sevilla in honor of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Nataliya came to dance seguidillas for this event and fell in love with the garden. Maria had long envisioned a poetic event at Dreamers Garden to honor the beloved Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, and this provided the perfect moment – Nataliya loved poetry and her favorite poet was Alexander Pushkin. Thus, 2024 marks the 11th anniversary that these annual readings have been taking place in Dreamers Garden, thanks to the dedication of Nataliya Lebedeva and Maria Huff Edwards as a gift to the Slavic community of Gainesville.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (6 June 1799 – 10 February 1837) was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.
Pushkin was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow. A remarkable fact about his ancestry is that his great-grandfather – Abram Gannibal – was brought over as a slave from Africa and had risen to become an aristocrat. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen.
Notoriously touchy about his honour, Pushkin fought a total of twenty-nine duels, and was fatally wounded in such an encounter with Georges-Charles de Heenckeren d’Anthès. D’Anthès, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment, had been attempting to seduce the poet’s wife, Natalya Punshkina. Pushkin’s early death at the age of 37 is still regarded as a catastrophe for Russian literature.
Source for Short Biography Above: Wikipedia