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Death

By the autumn of 1836, Pushkin was falling into greater and greater debt and faced scandalous rumours that his wife was having a love affair. On 4 November, he sent a challenge to a duel to Georges d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern. Jacob van Heeckeren, d'Anthès' adoptive father, asked that the duel be delayed by two weeks. With efforts by the poet's friends, the duel was cancelled.

On 17 November, d'Anthès proposed to Natalia Goncharova's sister, Ekaterina. The marriage did not resolve the conflict. D'Anthès continued to pursue Natalia Goncharova in public and rumours that d'Anthès had married Natalia's sister just to save her reputation circulated.

On 26 January (7 February in the Gregorian calendar) 1837 Pushkin sent a "highly insulting letter" to Gekkern. The only answer to that letter could be a challenge to a duel, as Pushkin knew. Pushkin received the formal challenge to a duel through his sister-in-law, Ekaterina Gekkerna, approved by d'Anthès, on the same day through the attaché of the French Embassy, Viscount d'Archiac.

Pushkin asked Arthur Magenis, then attaché to the British Consulate-General in Saint Petersburg, to be his second. Magenis did not formally accept but on 26 January (7 February) approached Viscount d'Archiac to attempt a reconciliation; however d'Archiac refused to speak with him as he was not yet officially Pushkin's second. Magenis, unable to find Pushkin in the evening, sent him a letter through a messenger at 2 o'clock in the morning declining to be his second, as the possibility of a peaceful settlement had already been quashed, and the traditional first task of the second was to try to bring about a reconciliation.

The pistol duel with d'Anthès took place on 27 January (8 February) at the Black River, without the presence of a second for Pushkin. The duel they fought was of a kind known as a "barrier duel". The rules of this type dictated that the duellists began at an agreed distance. After the signal to begin, they walked towards each other, closing the distance. They could fire at any time they wished, but the duellist that shot first was required to stand still and wait for the other to shoot back at his leisure.

D'Anthès fired first, critically wounding Pushkin; the bullet entered at his hip and penetrated his abdomen. D'Anthès was only lightly wounded in the right arm by Pushkin's shot. Two days later, at 2.45 pm on 29 January (10 February), Pushkin died of peritonitis.

At Pushkin's wife's request he was put in the coffin in evening dress, not in chamber-cadet uniform, the uniform provided by the emperor. The funeral service was initially assigned to St Isaac's Cathedral but was moved to Konyushennaya church. Many people attended. After the funeral the coffin was lowered into the basement, where it stayed until 3 February, when it was removed to Pskov province. Pushkin was buried in the grounds of Svyatogorsky monastery in present-day Pushkinskiye Gory, near Pskov, beside his mother. His last home is now a museum.