Why did Ruslan and Lyudmila make Aleksandr Pushkin famous?

Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820) brought Aleksandr Pushkin fame by boldly challenging the established literary norms of his time.12

The poem, a mock-heroic folk epic, was heavily influenced by the styles of Ludovico Ariosto and Voltaire, yet it uniquely incorporated an old Russian setting and elements of Russian folklore. By parodying various literary conventions—including the epic, the folk tale, the literary ballad, and the romance—the work intentionally flouted the rigid rules of the dominant literary schools of the day, Classicism and Sentimentalism.123

Although the poem faced violent criticism from these established schools, its innovative spirit and playfulness were widely recognized. Its impact was so significant that the prominent poet and translator Vasily Zhukovsky famously presented his portrait to Pushkin with the inscription, "To the victorious pupil from the defeated master," signaling the arrival of a major new talent in Russian literature.12