The Prisoner of the Caucasus

'The Prisoner of the Caucasus' is the first of Pushkin's series of southern Byronic poems. The plot is based on the romantic topos of the passionate love of a disappointed, rebellious hero (a captured Russian officer) for 'children of nature' who have not been spoiled by civilization (they are represented by a beautiful Circassian woman). This lyrical theme is presented against an epic background: the beauty of the vast Caucasus, the exotic life of the highlanders, the Caucasian War. Pushkin also wrote such wonderful works as 'The Scenes from Knightly Times', 'Tales of Belkin', 'Ruslan and Lyudmila', 'Eugene Onegin', 'Song of the Prophetic Oleg', 'Roslavlev', 'Notes of Brigadier Moreau de Braze' , 'The History of Peter', 'The Mermaid'. During his lifetime, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin earned himself a reputation as the greatest poet of Russia, whose work influenced the development of both Russian and and world literature. The greatest merit of the brilliant poet is also that he became the creator of the modern Russian literary language.