By Elaine Feinstein. On the bicentenary of his birth, this is the story of Alexander Pushkin , the father of Russian literature. He was the son of a feckless aristocrat and descended from the African slave of Peter the Great. A rebel, an exile and a reckless libertine, he died in the snow in a duel defending the good name of his wife. with Nicholas Farrell , Kenneth Cranham , Iwan Thomas and Tessa Worsley. Director Erin Riley