Pushkin

* I read “Pushkin Turns 200, but Never Grows Old” (June 4) with great interest, and the quote from the poet on the banner in central Moscow: “As long as there is one heart on Earth where I still live, my memory will not die.”

Well, he lives in my heart and has since my youth. Not so much for his poetry, I must confess, but for the fact that he saved my uncle’s life during the turmoil in the 1950s in Budapest, Hungary. My uncle was condemned to death simply because he was an intellectual who spoke several languages. A few days before his execution, someone informed the authorities that the sister of my uncle’s great-grandmother was Pushkin’s wife. He was pardoned and released and our family estate of Brodzianske in Hungary is now a Pushkin museum.

BARBARA VON

SCHALBURG-RAMOS

Los Angeles