He had come into the country with a passionate love for everything that showed the feeling or fancy of the Russian peasant. His taste for popular poetry was insatiable. He listened to his old nurse's stories, collected and noted down songs, studied the habits and customs of Russian villages, and began a serious study of Russian history. All this helped greatly to develop the popular side of his genius. He afterwards relinquished his earlier models of the romantic school, and sought a simpler, truer inspiration in the pages of Shakespeare.
Writing to a friend, Bashkin says that he has brought up from the country to Moscow the two last cantos of "Evguenie Onegin," ready for the press, a poem called "The Little House at Kolomna," and several dramatic scenes, including "The Miser Knight," "Mozart and Salieri," "The Beast during the Plague" and "The Commander's Statue."
"Besides that," he goes on to say, "I have written about thirty short poems, Nor is that, all, I have also (a great secret) written some prose—five short tales."
Fortunately for him, Pushkin was living in the country, when, in December, 1825, the insurrection and military revolt against the Emperor Nicholas, who had just ascended the throne, broke out at St. Petersburg.
Pushkin was affiliated to the secret society, with Pestle and Ryleieff at its head, which had organised the rebellion; and, on receiving a summons from his confederates, he started for the capital. So, at least, says Alexander Herzen in his curious "Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia." On leaving his country house, Pushkin met three ill omens. First a hare crossed his path, next he saw a priest, and, finally, he met a funeral. He went on, however, towards Moscow, and there learned that the insurrection had been crushed. The five principal leaders were executed, and whole families were exiled to Siberia.
In September, 1826, the Emperor Nicholas had an interview with Pushkin at Moscow. Pushkin replied simply and frankly to all the Tsar's questions, and the latter at last promised in future to be himself sole censor of the poet's works.
Pushkin remained at Moscow till about the end of the winter of 1827, when he was allowed to go to St. Petersburg. There he afterwards chiefly resided, returning sometimes to the country to work, usually in autumn, when his power of production, he said, was strongest.
In the summer of 1829 Pushkin visited the Army of the Caucasus then operating against the Turks. He describes his experiences in his "Journey to Erzeroum."
On the 18th of February, 1831, he married Natalia Nikolaevna Gontcharova, and soon afterwards received a Foreign Office appointment with a salary of 5,000 roubles.
In August, 1833, meaning to write a novel on the Pugatcheff Insurrection, Pushkin paid a short visit to Kazan and Orenburg to acquaint himself with the locality and collect materials. But his tale, "The Captain's Daughter," appeared considerably later.