Alexander Pushkin was Russia's first genius in poetry and prose, who, according to Dostoyevsky, "showed us a whole gallery of genuinely beautiful Russian characters which he discovered in the Russian people". After completing his epic poem Eugene Onegin, Pushkin retired to his family's house in the country at Boldino in 1830, where he produced his first prose masterpiece, Tales of Belkin. These stories are wonderful in their purity of form, humor, and understatement. This collection also contains a selection of his other writings, including the novel fragment "Roslavlev", "Egyptian Nights", and Pushkin's autobiographical "Journey to Arzrum".