Russian Language Day, or Pushkin Day, an international day dedicated to the Russian language, was established by the United Nations in 2010. It is celebrated on June 6, the birthday of the literary great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. In the Russian Federation, the holiday was established in 2011.

This holiday is an additional reason to remember the greatness of Russian culture and the ‘high style’ used before Alexander Pushkin. The poet sought to give speech a ‘noble simplicity’ and to diversify the Russian language by enriching it with well-known words from colloquial speech. As a result of his work, the schematic division of literary speech into three styles – high, medium, and low – disappeared. Literary language acquired a more coherent, unified, and systematic character.  The poet saw simplicity, expressiveness and humour in the folk speech, and grandeur and sublimity in the literary language. If it weren't for Alexander Pushkin, we might be speaking differently today. Russian readers are familiar with the name Alexander Pushkin from a very young age. As children, we were read his fairy tales, then we became acquainted with his lyrical works, novels and short stories. He stands at the origins of modern Russian literature, and this applies to absolutely all its types and genres: poetry, prose, criticism, and drama. This is the foundation of the country's cultural achievements. In 1859, Apollon Grigoriev said, ‘Pushkin is everything for us,’ and Vladimir Odoyevsky called him ‘the sun of Russian poetry’ in his obituary.

The literary works of the great Russian poet are a rich cultural heritage gifted to the world. Love for his works unites people of all ages, religions, and nationalities; his works have been translated into dozens of languages.

In the literary- journalistic work by Pushkin, written in 1833-1835 and first published after the author's death in 1841, the poet called language ‘the common property of the entire human race.’

In these words, he defined the main purpose of language – to be a mirror of all humanity, of every nation, great and small, of every individual, since it is in language that the history of a people and its spiritual  explorations are enshrined.

The first monument to the poet was erected on the 6^th of June, 1880 on Strastnaya Square (it received the name Pushkinskaya only in 1937) in the center of the capital. It was the monument created by Alexander Opekushin (1838-1923). The bust portrait of the poet – reduced-scale mirror copy of the monument upper part that was erected 145 years ago, is presented in the museum Collection exposition.

The first money for the erection of a monument to Pushkin came through a charity line, but these 13 thousand roubles were not enough. In 1870, one of the lyceum students, Yakov Grot, organized additional fundraising, which lasted a whole decade. During this rather large period, 160 575 roubles 10 kopecks were collected.

In the mid-70s of the 19^th century, a tender was announced for the best project of a monument to A. Pushkin. The prominent Russian sculptor Alexander Opekushin, respected by monarchist circles of that time won it. Many options were considered in the process of creating the monument. The sculptor, who was assisted by the architect Ivan Bogomolov, performed at least three dozen plasticine and clay models. He also made sketches on paper, depicting Pushkin in various poses, and all variations were collected in ten large albums. It took five years to make a model of the monument, cast the sculpture itself and build a pedestal under it.

The sculpture of the poet was casted at a bronze foundry in St. Petersburg, and Serdobol granite of dark red color was used as a material for the pedestal. When the pedestal was installed in place, it was slightly damaged. For this reason, the opening of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow, scheduled for October 19, 1879, fell through. The same happened with the following date – May 26, 1880 (the poet’s birthday under the Julian calendar). Four days earlier, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of Alexander II, died of tuberculosis, and on this occasion, the mourning was declared in the country.

And finally, June 6, 1880 arrived – the next date for the unveiling of the monument. This time, the solemn ceremony, that became significant not only for the cultural life of Moscow, but for the entire country as well, was organised. The event was held with scores of people, later it would be called the "second birth" of the poet, who went down in history as the founder of the modern Russian literary language as well.