Tatas Hryhorovych Shevchenko was born in village of Moryntsi in the family of serfs. He lost his mother at the age of nine. When Taras wos eleven his father died. So the boy was orphaned and grew up in poverty and misery. At the age of 14 he become a servant in the house of his owner P. Engelhardt. He apprenticed him to the painter Shyriayev for 4 yers. At this time he met the Russian poet Brylov. Brylov painted the portrait of the poet Zhukovskiy and sold it for 2500 roubles. the money used to by Shevchenko's freedom.
Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow . He grew up with an older sister and younger brother Olga Levushka . Mother, Nadezhda Osipovna Hannibal , had the grand daughter Negro of Peter I, later Russian general Hannibal. Father, Sergei L. , poor landowner knew literature, was acquainted with many Russian writers and wrote himself a bit ... In the Pushkin family all interested in literature , poetry, even the children tried to write poems ." Pushkin lived cheerfully and openly , and the whole house was in charge of old Hannibal , very smart , efficient and sensible woman - later recalled one friend Pushkin .- Senior her grandson , Alexander , was a big goof and savage Kinky boy of nine or ten years old , with a dark face, I will not say to priglyadnym but with very lively eyes , from which sparks and fell ... "Maria A. Hannibal loved smart precocious grandson. The boy was also fondly attached to her grandmother , she learned to read and write Russian , and when he grew up , the eagerly listened to her stories about the Russian past , of Peter I, about his great-grandfather Hannibal .Care Pushkin went nurse Arina - serf . She knew a lot of Russian folk songs, tales and was wonderful storyteller .Pushkin loved since childhood folk tales , songs, proverbs : all his life he collected, recorded , studied them .Already renowned poet , he had lived for two years in his father's estate Pskov - village of St. Michael . Long winter evenings he spent with his old nanny Arina Rodionovna and as a child , listening to tales with passion and jokes ." What a darling these tales ! Each has a poem "- Pushkin wrote to his brother. "What a luxury, what is the point , what's the point in each of our saying ! As for the gold ! "- So said Pushkin writer Vladimir Ivanovich Dal , a great connoisseur of folk poetry .Life of the native people , nurse's tales , stories grandmother - all deeply sunk into the memory and soul of the great Russian poet and became a source of their own creativity.
