This article examines the portrayal of A.S. Pushkin in Russian television shows. First appearing as a supporting character in the series "The Death of Wazir-Mukhtar: The Love and Life of Griboyedov", cinema-Pushkin received a lukewarm critical response, leading directors to put biopics about the poet on hold for a decade and a half, searching for their own Pushkin. From 2010 to 2025, more than 10 series of various genres were released, in which the image of Pushkin embodies various semiotic components of the Pushkin myth on screen: the poet is woven into the film narrative without becoming a character in his own right, but serving as the basis for plot collisions; after death, he exists in our lives and, under certain circumstances, can be conversed with; he is endowed with superpowers; situations about Pushkin, familiar from school days, are embodied in the lives of modern characters; when traveling to the past, an encounter with Pushkin is inevitable. Pushkin first appears as the main character in the animated series "Pushkin and..." (2022–2025), then in the TV drama "Natalie and Alexander" (2025, 1 season). The former was met with enthusiasm, while the latter was received negatively, which may be due to the public's reluctance to desacralize the image of Russia's first poet and the strong pressure of universalism, which has become a tradition in 20th-century feature films, unlike animation, which is closest to postmodernist aesthetics.
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