In a recent poll the Scottish public voted Robert Burns, a famous national poet, to be the greatest Scot of all time.
On this day the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, who was in 2009 chosen for the greatest Scot of all time (“The Greatest Scot”), was born. Robert Burns is extremely important in the Scottish national tradition because he sang many popular Scottish folk songs, including the world-famous Auld Lang Syne.
Burns was born into a family of modest financial possibilities, in the village of Alloway, not far from the western Scottish coast. He was born in 1759 – the same year as the famous German poet Friedrich Schiller, and three years after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Interestingly, in order to make some money, Robert Burns went to work in distant Jamaica, where he found a job as a bookkeeper on a slave plantation. He later returned to Scotland. During his life, Burns had numerous love affairs, and that was reflected in his romantic poetry. He died at the young age of 37 in Dumfries, Scotland.
