During his early years, he served in Russia's Leib Guard Izmailovo Regiment, retiring with the rank of poruchik.
Pushkin was a neoclassical poet and was indifferent to the then-popular romantic movement.
He was a follower of light poetry, and wrote numerous songs, epistles, and epigrams in the manner of Horace, Tibullus, or Catullus.
Vasily Lvovich had a sudden burst of creativity in 1810 and 1811, when he wrote his best polemical verse, including a humorous masterpiece, A Dangerous Neighbour (1811), set in a bawdyhouse.
Buyanov, the main character of the poem, became a household name; Alexander Pushkin mentioned him in Eugene Onegin.