The Bronze Horseman (poem)

The Bronze Horseman

Alexandre Benois's illustration to the poem (1904)
Author	Alexander Pushkin
Original title	Медный Всадник [Mednyi Vsadnik]
Translator	C. E. Turner
Language	Russian
Genre	Narrative poem
Publisher	Sovremennik
Publication date	1837
Publication place	Russia
Published in English	1882

The Bronze Horseman: A Petersburg Tale (Russian: Медный всадник: Петербургская повесть, romanized: Mednyy vsadnik: Peterburgskaya povest) is a narrative poem written by Alexander Pushkin in 1833 about the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg and the great flood of 1824. While the poem was written in 1833, it was not published in its entirety until after Pushkin's death, as his work was under censorship due to the political nature of his other writings. Widely considered to be Pushkin's most successful narrative poem, The Bronze Horseman has had a lasting impact on Russian literature. The Pushkin critic A. D. P. Briggs praises the poem "as the best in the Russian language, and even the best poem written anywhere in the nineteenth century".^[1] It is considered one of the most influential works in Russian literature and is one of the reasons Pushkin is often called the "founder of modern Russian literature".

The statue became known as The Bronze Horseman due to the great influence of the poem.^[2]