I have always been amazed – why on earth should we know and remember when someone like the hypothetical Pushkin was born if the school years of all these luminaries went relatively unnoticed in history, and some even began writing closer to their life’s twilight.
For “practical” purposes, it’s sufficient to remember for about a decade when this or that author was in their prime, and who their contemporaries were (especially in the same location), and what significant events were happening around them (especially in the same location). It’s never and nowhere important whether Pushkin was born in 1799 or, say, five years later (unless you are a Pushkin scholar, of course). Yet, in school, we had to learn all these dates for some reason.
To me, it seems far more important to remember that Pushkin’s brightest works came within 15-17 years starting around the era of the Decembrists and Nicholas I, around which time there was also war with the Persians and Turks and the Caucasus in general, and that young Lermontov and Gogol were loitering somewhere nearby. That’s it, unforgettable. And no need to remember any dates.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 