Great Black Russian: A Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin

novel by Killens

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

July 21, 2026

Quick Summary

"Great Black Russian: A Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin" is a posthumously published novel by John Oliver Killens. Killens was an American writer and activist known for his politically charged novels and contributions to the Black Arts movement.1

The novel explores the life and times of Alexander Pushkin, often considered Russia's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin, born in 1799, was a prolific poet, novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer whose work significantly shaped the Russian language and literature. Killens' novel draws on Pushkin's family traditions, including his maternal ancestry, which traced back to an Abyssinian princeling adopted by Peter the Great.21

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

2 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

John Oliver Killens
The book Great Black Russian: A Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin was published posthumously in 1989. (According to Pushkin family tradition, the writer’s mother was the granddaughter of an Abyssinian princeling bought as a slave at Constantinople and adopted by Peter the Great.)…
Read More
The book Great Black Russian: A Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin was published posthumously in 1989. (According to Pushkin family tradition, the writer’s mother was the granddaughter of an Abyssinian princeling bought as a slave at Constantinople and adopted by Peter the Great.)…
Read More