How did Aleksandr Pushkin begin his literary career at the Imperial Lyceum?

Aleksandr Pushkin began his literary career while attending the Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo, which he entered in 1811. His professional debut occurred in 1814 with the publication of his verse epistle, "To My Friend, the Poet," in the journal Vestnik Evropy ("The Messenger of Europe").1

During his time at the Lyceum, Pushkin also began working on his first major completed project, the romantic poem Ruslan and Ludmila. In these early years, his writing was heavily influenced by the styles of French poets and his older Russian contemporaries, K.N. Batyushkov and V.A. Zhukovsky.1