The birth anniversary of Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet whose works beautifully reflected the spirit of the people of that country in his works, was observed by the Russian Cultural Centre here as the Day of the Russian Language.
The event was organised on Thursday in association with the Russkiy Mir Foundation.
Puthusseri Ramachandran, who translated many poems of Pushkin, inaugurated a seminar.
In his inaugural speech, Mr. Ramachandran said Pushkin was a treated as the father of Russian poetry because he opened Russian literature to the rest of the world.
“Pushkin believed in the strength of poems but he did not believe in the right spirit of love. He lost his life because of it. Otherwise, world literature would have got a treasure of good poems from him. His poetic novel, Evgeniy Onegin, was a unique initiative in literature,” Mr. Ramachandran said.
The guest of honour, poet D. Vinayachandran, said the decision of the Russian government to observe the birth anniversary of Pushkin as the Day of Russian Language was ideal because it was due to the poet that Russians started feeling proud of their language and literature.
