Konstantin Batyushkov is an outstanding Russian poet who gave the poetic language a special harmony and flexibility.
Batyushkov is one of the first to introduce many developments into Russian poetry that were recognized as classics during his lifetime.
During this period of biography, Batyushkov was especially interested in French and Russian. At the same time, he studied Latin and was also interested in the ancient Roman classics.
While in St. Petersburg, Batyushkov met an outstanding Russian poet.
An interesting fact is that Konstantin Batyushkov was a relative of the senator and public figure Mikhail Muravyov, who helped him get a job in the Ministry of Public Education.
After serving there for about 3 years, 18-year-old Batyushkov began working as a clerk at the Ministry of Education.
In 1807, Konstantin Batyushkov enlisted in the people's militia, after which he went on the Prussian campaign.
In one of the battles he was wounded and sent to Riga for treatment. After 2 months he was allowed to go home.
While in Riga, Konstantin met a girl, Emilia, with whom he immediately fell in love.
And although their relationship did not continue, the feelings that flared up allowed Batyushkov to compose the first poems in his biography - “Memories of 1807” and “Recovery”.
In 1808, Batyushkov decides to volunteer for the war with Sweden. This patriotic impulse will greatly influence the subsequent fate of the poet.
Having lost many comrades on the battlefield and seeing what the true face of death was, he took a leave of absence and went to visit his sisters in the village of Khantanovo.
During this period of his biography, Batyushkov became a completely different person. He was extremely emotional and impressionable. Sometimes he experienced hallucinations.
An interesting fact is that during correspondence with Gnedich, Batyushkov once admitted that if he lived another 10 years, he would probably go crazy.
However, to the aid of the young man who received psychological trauma on the battlefields, friends and relatives always came and did everything possible to somehow reassure and encourage him.
In 1809, Konstantin Nikolaevich managed to meet and, who made a tremendous impression on him.
Soon he was helped to get a job at the Public Library as an assistant curator of manuscripts. An interesting fact is that one of his colleagues was the famous.
The significance of Batyushkov in the history of Russian literature and his main merit lies in the fact that he worked hard on processing his native poetic speech and gave the Russian poetic language such flexibility, elasticity and harmony that Russian poetry had never known before.
According to Belinsky, the perfection of Pushkin's verse and the wealth of poetic expressions and turns of phrase were largely prepared by the works of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov.
Batyushkov constantly improved his style. He worked long, persistently and painfully on each word. He once wrote: “I ship too much. Is this my vice or my virtue?.
Here short list the most famous works Konstantin Batyushkov.
"Ghost. From Guys”, “Nadezhda”, “My Genius”, “Tavrida”, “To a Friend”, “Elegy”, “Gazebo of the Muses”, “There is pleasure in the wildness of the forests”,
“My Penates” and “To Dashkov”.
“From the Greek Anthology”, “Imitations of the Ancients”.
“Walk around Moscow”, “Walk to the Academy of Arts”, “Something about the poet and poetry”, “Arioste and Tass”, “Petrarch”, “O best properties hearts”, “Something about morality based on philosophy and religion”, “A speech about the influence of light poetry on language”.
Soon, difficult days began in Batyushkov’s biography. He developed a persecution mania. It seemed to the poet that secret enemies were pursuing him everywhere.
An interesting fact is that one of his sisters, Alexandra, had a similar disease.
When Batyushkov turned 30, his father passed away. This led to him beginning to think for a long time about the meaning of life and reflect on religious issues.
During the biography period 1819-1821. Batyushkov was a member of the diplomatic mission in Naples. Italy made an indelible impression on him, but he constantly yearned for.
At this time it happens to him breakdown, after which the poet begins to clearly manifest pronounced signs schizophrenia. At this time, he wrote the poem “The Testament of Melchizedek.”
Every month Konstantin Batyushkov became worse. Imaginary persecution made the life of the writer and the people around him unbearable. As a result, he was put in mental asylum.
After 4 years of treatment he was sent to.
One day, Alexander Pushkin came to visit Batyushkov, who was shocked by the terrible appearance of the poet. After some time, Pushkin will write the famous poem “God forbid I go crazy.”
The patient spent the last 22 years of his life in the house of his nephew. Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov died of typhus on July 7, 1855 at the age of 68. He was buried in the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery.
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Batyushkov Konstantin Nikolaevich (1787-1855), poet.
The poet's childhood was overshadowed by mental illness and the early death of his mother. He was educated in an Italian boarding school in St. Petersburg.
Batyushkov’s first known poems (“God”, “Dream”) date back to approximately 1803-1804, and he began publishing in 1805.
In 1807, Batyushkov began a grandiose work - the translation of a poem by an Italian poet of the 16th century. Torquato Tasso "Jerusalem Liberated". In 1812 he went to war with Napoleon I, where he was seriously wounded. Subsequently, Batyushkov then re-entered military service(participated in the Finnish campaign of 1809, foreign campaigns of the Russian army of 1813-1814), he either served in the St. Petersburg Public Library, or lived in retirement in the village.
In 1809, he became friends with V. A. Zhukovsky and P. A. Vyazemsky. In 1810-1812 the poems “Ghost”, “False Fear”, “Bacchante” and “My Penates” were written. Message to Zhukovsky and Vyazemsky." To their contemporaries they seemed full of joy, glorifying the serene enjoyment of life.
The collision with the tragic reality of the Patriotic War of 1812 produced a complete revolution in the poet’s mind. “The terrible actions... of the French in Moscow and its environs... completely upset my little philosophy and quarreled me with humanity,” he admitted in one of his letters.
The cycle of Batyushkov’s elegies of 1815 opens with a bitter complaint: “I feel that my gift in poetry has gone out...”; "No no! life is a burden to me! What is there without hope?..” (“Memoirs”). The poet either hopelessly mourns the loss of his beloved (“Awakening”), then evokes her appearance (“My Genius”), or dreams of how he could hide with her in idyllic solitude (“Tavrida”).
At the same time, he seeks consolation in faith, believing that beyond the grave a “better world” will certainly await him (“Hope”, “To a Friend”). This confidence, however, did not relieve anxiety. Batyushkov now perceives the fate of every poet as tragic.
Batyushkov was tormented by illness (consequences of old wounds), and economic affairs were going badly. In 1819, after much trouble, the poet received an appointment to the diplomatic service in Naples. He hoped that the climate of Italy would benefit him, and that impressions of his childhood favorite country would inspire him. None of this came true. The climate turned out to be harmful for Batyushkov; the poet wrote little in Italy and destroyed almost everything he wrote.
From the end of 1820, severe nervous breakdown. Batyushkov was treated in Germany, then returned to Russia, but this did not help: nervous disease turned into mental. Attempts at treatment yielded nothing. In 1824, the poet fell into complete unconsciousness and spent about 30 years there. Towards the end of his life his condition improved somewhat, but his sanity never returned.
Batyushkov, Konstantin Nikolaevich, famous poet. Born on May 18, 1787 in Vologda, he came from an old, but humble and not particularly rich noble family. His great-uncle was mentally ill, his father was an unbalanced, suspicious and difficult person, and his mother (nee Berdyaeva) soon after the birth of the future poet went crazy and was separated from her family; Thus, B. had a predisposition to psychosis in his blood. B. spent his childhood in the family village of Danilovskoye, Bezhetsk district, Novgorod province. At the age of ten he was assigned to the St. Petersburg French boarding house Jacquinot, where he spent four years, and then studied at the Tripoli boarding school for two years. Here he received the most basic general scientific information and practical knowledge of French, German and Italian language; a much better school for him was the family of his great uncle, Mikhail Nikitich Muravyov, a writer and statesman who directed his literary interest towards classical fiction. A passive, apolitical nature, B. had an aesthetic attitude towards life and literature. The circle of young people with whom he became friends when he entered the service (under the administration of the Ministry of Public Education, 1802) and into secular life was also alien to political interests, and B.’s first works breathe selfless epicureanism. B. became especially friendly with Gnedich, visited the intelligent and hospitable house of A.N. Olenin, which then played the role of a literary salon, N.M. Karamzin, became close to Zhukovsky. Under the influence of this circle, B. took part in the literary war between the Shishkovists and the “Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Science and the Arts,” to which B.’s friends belonged. The general patriotic movement that arose after the Battle of Austerlitz, where Russia suffered a severe defeat, carried away B., and in 1807, when the second war with Napoleon began, he entered military service, took part in the Prussian campaign and on May 29, 1807 was wounded near Heilsberg. His first love interest dates back to this time (to the Riga German woman Mugel, the daughter of the owner of the house where the wounded poet was placed). In this hobby (it was reflected in the poems “Recovery” and “Memory”, 1807), the poet showed more sensitivity than feelings; then his leader Muravyov died; both events left a painful mark on his soul. He fell ill. After being ill for several months , B. returned to military service, participated in the Swedish war, was on the Finnish campaign; in 1810 he settled in Moscow and became close to Prince P. A. Vyazemsky, I. M. Muravyov-Apostol, V. L. Pushkin. “Here “, says L. Maikov, “his literary opinions became stronger, and his view on the relationship of the literary parties of that time to the main tasks and needs of Russian education was established; here B.’s talent met with sympathetic appreciation.” Among talented friends and sometimes “charming women,” the poet spent the best two years of his life here. Returning to St. Petersburg at the beginning of 1812, B. entered the Public Library, where Krylov, Uvarov, Gnedich, but in next year again entered military service, visited Germany, France, England and Sweden. From the grandiose political lesson that young Russia then received and, in the person of many of its gifted representatives, established a close acquaintance with Europe and its institutions, B.’s share, due to the conditions of his mental make-up, received nothing; he fed his soul almost exclusively with aesthetic perceptions. Returning to St. Petersburg, he learned a new passion of his heart - he fell in love with A.F. Furman, who lived with Olenin. But, due to his own indecision and passivity, the romance suddenly and pitifully ended, leaving a bitter aftertaste in his soul; To this failure was added failure in service, and B., who had already been haunted by hallucinations several years ago, finally plunged into a severe and dull apathy, intensified by his stay in a remote province - in Kamenets-Podolsk, where he had to go with his regiment. At this time (1815 - 1817), his talent flared up with particular brightness, for the last time before weakening and finally fading away, which he always foresaw. In January 1816, he retired and settled in Moscow, occasionally visiting St. Petersburg, where he was accepted into the literary society "Arzamas" (under the nickname "Achilles"), or to the village; in the summer of 1818 he traveled to Odessa. Needing a warm climate and dreaming of Italy, where he had been drawn since childhood, to the “spectacle of wonderful nature”, to the “miracles of the arts,” B. obtained an appointment to the diplomatic service in Naples (1818), but served poorly and quickly experienced his first enthusiastic impressions, did not find friends whose participation was necessary for this gentle soul, and began to feel sad. In 1821, he decided to give up both service and literature and moved to Germany. Here he sketched his last poetic lines, full of bitter meaning (“Testament of Melchizedek”), a weak but desperate cry of a spirit dying in the arms of madness. In 1822 he returned to Russia. When asked by one of his friends what new things he wrote, B. replied: “What should I write and what should I say about my poems? I look like a man who did not reach his goal, and he was carrying a vessel filled with something on his head. "The vessel fell off the head, fell and broke into pieces. Now go and find out what was in it!" They tried to treat B., who attempted suicide several times, in the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, but the disease worsened. Mentally, B. was out of action earlier than all his peers, but physically outlived almost all of them; he died in his native Vologda on July 7, 1855. In Russian literature, with an insignificant absolute value, B. has large value forerunners of original, national creativity. He stands on the line between Derzhavin, Karamzin, Ozerov, on the one hand, and Pushkin, on the other. Pushkin called B. his teacher, and in his work, especially his youthful period, there are many traces of B.’s influence. He began his poetic activity, which ended with such a mournful chord, with anacreontic motifs: “Oh, before priceless youth rushes away like an arrow, drink from the cup full of joy" ... "friends, leave the ghost of glory, love fun in your youth and sow roses on the way" ... "let's quickly fly on the path of life for happiness, let's get drunk with voluptuousness and outstrip death, pick flowers furtively under the blade of a scythe and the laziness of life Let's extend it briefly, let's extend the hours!" But these feelings are not everything and not the main thing in B. The essence of his work is more fully revealed in the elegies. “Towards his inner discontent,” said his biographer, “new literary trends came from the West; the type of man, disappointed with life, then took possession of the minds of the younger generation... B., perhaps, was one of the first Russian people to taste the bitterness of disappointment; soft , the spoiled, self-loving nature of our poet, a man who lived exclusively by abstract interests, was a very susceptible soil for the corrosive influence of disappointment... This lively impressionability and tender, almost painful sensitivity nurtured the high talent of the lyricist, and he found in himself the power to express the deepest movements of the soul." In it, reflections of world grief are mixed with traces of personal difficult experiences. “Tell me, young sage, what is strong on earth? Where is life’s constant happiness?” - asks B. ("To a Friend", 1816): "we are wanderers for a moment, we walk over graves, we consider all days as losses... everything here is vanity in the monastery of vanities, friendship and friendship are fragile...". He was tormented by memories of unsuccessful love: “Oh, memory of the heart, you are stronger than the mind of the sad memory”... (“My genius”), “nothing cheers the soul, a soul alarmed by dreams, and a proud mind will not defeat love - with cold words” (“Awakening”): “in vain did I leave the country of my fathers, friends of the soul, brilliant arts and in the noise of formidable battles, under the shadow of tents, I tried to lull my alarmed feelings! Ah, an alien sky does not heal the wounds of the heart! In vain I wandered from end to end, and the formidable ocean behind me murmured and worried" ("Separation"). At these moments, he was visited by self-doubt: “I feel that my gift in poetry has gone out, and the muse has extinguished the heavenly flame” (“Memoirs”). The best of all poems by B. also belongs to the elegies. , "Dying Tass". He was always captivated by the personality of the author of “Liberated Jerusalem,” and in his own fate he found something in common with the fate of the Italian poet, into whose mouth he put a sad and proud confession: “So! I accomplished what Phoebus had appointed. From his first youth, his zealous priest, under like lightning, under an angry sky, I sang the greatness and glory of former days, and in the bonds my soul did not change. The sweet delight of the Muses did not fade away in my soul, and my genius was strengthened in suffering... Everything earthly perishes - both the glory and the crown of the arts and the muses of creation are majestic... But there everything is eternal, just as the Creator himself is eternal, who gives us the crown of immortal glory, there is everything great that my spirit fed on."... Russian classicism in B.'s poetry experienced a beneficial turn from the external, false direction to healthy ancient source; in ancient times, for B. there was not dry archeology, not an arsenal of ready-made images and expressions, but a living and close to the heart area of imperishable beauty; in ancient times he loved not the historical, not the past, but the supra-historical and eternal - the anthology, Tibullus, Horace; he translated Tibullus and the Greek anthology. He approached Pushkin closer than all his contemporaries, even closer than Zhukovsky, with the variety of lyrical motifs and, especially, the external merits of the verse; Of all the harbingers of this greatest phenomenon of Russian literature, B. is the most immediate both in terms of internal proximity and time. “These are not yet Pushkin’s poems,” Belinsky said about one of his plays, “but after them one should have expected not just any others, but Pushkin’s.” Pushkin called him a happy associate of Lomonosov, who did for the Russian language the same thing that he did Petrarch for Italian". His best assessment given by Belinsky still remains in force. “Passion is the soul of B.’s poetry, and the passionate intoxication of love is its pathos... The feeling that animates B. is always organically vital... Grace is the constant companion of B.’s muse, no matter what she sings”... In prose, fictional and critical, B. showed himself, as Belinsky called him, “an excellent stylist.” He was especially interested in questions of language and style. His satirical works are dedicated to the literary struggle - “The Singer in the Conversation of the Slavic Russians”, “Vision on the Shores of Lethe”, most of the epigrams. B. was published in various magazines and collections, and in 1817 Gnedich published a collection of his works, “Experiments in Poetry and Prose.” Then B.'s works were published in 1834 ("Works in prose and verse", published by I.I. Glazunov), in 1850 (published by A.F. Smirdin). In 1887, a monumental classic edition by L. was published. N. Maykov, in three volumes, with notes by Maykov and V.I. Saitova; at the same time L.N. Maikov released a one-volume, publicly available, affordable publication, and in 1890, a cheap edition of B.'s poems with a short introductory article (published by the editors of the "Pantheon of Literature"). L.N. Maikov owns an extensive biography of B. (1 volume, published in 1887). - Wed. A. N. Pypin "History of Russian Literature", vol. IV; S.A. Vengerov "Critical-biographical dictionary of Russian writers and scientists", vol. II; Y. Aikhenvald “Silhouettes of Russian Writers”, Issue I. The bibliography is listed in Vengerov - “Sources of the Dictionary of Russian Writers”, Vol. I.
Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov was born on May 18 (29), 1787 in Vologda into a poor noble family. He spends his adolescence with his cousin, poet and educator M.N. Muravyova. Author philosophical works about morality, he considered “dedication of oneself to the fatherland” the highest goal of life. His upbringing will serve the future poet well.
In St. Petersburg, Batyushkov graduated from two private boarding schools and entered the service of the Ministry of Public Education. Batyushkov’s youthful poetry is full of dreaminess and romanticism, but already in the first poems one can feel harmony in every line.
A common theme of poems in Golden Age poetry was messages of friendship. “Letters to friends... my real family,” Batyushkov admitted to his close friend from his youth, N.I. Gnedich. Later, this type of poetry was continued by Pushkin, who considered Batyushkov one of his teachers. “The philosopher is frisky and drunk, a happy sloth of Parnassus,” Alexander Sergeevich called him.
In 1807 K.N. Batyushkov takes part in the war with Napoleon in East Prussia, later in the war with Sweden, and makes a campaign in Finland. Heavy war pictures were reflected in Batyushkov’s work through the prism dreamy love to life.
Oh, the fields of Heilsberg!
At that time I didn't know
What are the corpses of warriors
Your fields will be covered,
That with a copper jaw thunder will burst from here
That I am your happy dreamer,
Flying to death against enemies,
Clutching the severe wound with my hand,
I can hardly wither away at the dawn of this life.
I withered, disappeared, and my life is young,
The sun seemed to have set.
But you got closer
O life of my soul...
"Memories of 1807"
Batyushkov’s poems are distinguished by their euphony and musical sound. The alliteration is extraordinary: the repetition of the consonant “s”: What a joy it is to rise again in a clear spring! // In the eyes of love, spring is even more beautiful!
At the beginning of the 19th century. N. M. Karamzin carries out his stylistic reform, the goal of which was to bring the book language closer to the spoken language. Supporting him, Batyushkov in 1809 wrote the satire “Vision on the Hills of Lethe.” In it, the author opposes A.S. Shishkova and S.N. Glinka, struggles with the use of Old Church Slavonic words in poetry. Being a lover of ancient culture, European, and especially Italian poetry, Batyushkov was not a supporter of the Slavophiles’ belief that everything Russian is superior to foreign.
In 1812, the poet witnessed the fire of Moscow. “The death of friends, a shrine, a peaceful refuge of science, everything has been desecrated by a gang of barbarians!..”, writes Konstantin Nikolaevich in a letter to a friend.
In 1813, Batyushkov took part in the battle of Leipzig. His poem “The Shadow of a Friend” (1814) is dedicated to the memory of his friend I. A. Petin who died there. There's a spill in it sea waves reminds the author of a deceased comrade, makes us think about the transience of life in the face of the elements and eternity. After the war events he experienced, notes of disappointment and anxiety begin to sound in Batyushkov’s poetry; perhaps these were premonitions of impending mental illness. “And he drank the cup of sorrow to the drop; // It seemed that the heavens were tired of punishing him,” says the poet in “The Fate of Odysseus.” Is it not about his fate that he continues in “Elegy”: I feel that my gift in poetry has gone out, And the muse has extinguished the heavenly flame; Sad experience opened a new Desert to the eyes. Batyushkov’s work is literally permeated with Greek mythology; it makes him sublime, connecting him with antiquity with a thin thread. Arrangements by Greek poets occupy a large place in his work, and the most outstanding of the translations was the elegy “The Dying Tass”. “Trust the shuttle! swim! - the poet’s thought sounds, consonant with his other work “Hope”: “My spirit! power of attorney to the Creator! About the elegy “Tavrida”, written in 1815, A.S. Pushkin responded: “In terms of feeling, in terms of harmony, in terms of the art of versification, in terms of the luxury of negligence of imagination, this is Batyushkov’s best elegy.” In 1815, the “playful and spirited philosopher” was accepted in absentia into the literary society “Arzamas”, whose members were Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Vasily Lvovich and Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. For more than a year (1816-1817) Batyushkov worked on his Khantonov estate on “Experiments in Poetry and Prose.” This collection became a lifetime publication of poems and articles about Russian poetry, essays about Lomonosov, Kantemir; articles about the poets revered by Batyushkov “Arioste and Tass”, “Petrarch”; reasoning on philosophical and universal topics (“On the best properties of the heart”). “...Live as you write, and write as you live,” are the words of Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov addressed to us. A long-awaited trip to Italy, the homeland of his beloved poets, brings hope and the last joy to the poet’s life. Batyushkov spends more than twenty years of his life with an incurable mental illness in Vologda. He died in 1855. “Oh, memory of the heart, you are stronger // Reason than the sad memory...” - the lines that are dearest to the heart sound.
BATYUSHKOV Konstantin Nikolaevich, Russian poet.
Childhood and youth. Start of service
Born into an old but impoverished noble family. Batyushkov's childhood was overshadowed by the death of his mother (1795) from a hereditary mental illness. In 1797-1802 he studied in private boarding schools in St. Petersburg. From the end of 1802, Batyushkov served in the Ministry of Public Education under the leadership of M. N. Muravyov, a poet and thinker who had a deep influence on him. When war with Napoleon was declared, Batyushkov joined the militia (1807) and took part in the campaign against Prussia (he was seriously wounded near Heilsberg). In 1808 he took part in the Swedish campaign. In 1809 he retired and settled on his estate Khantonovo, Novgorod province.
Beginning of literary activity
Batyushkov's literary activity began in 1805-1806 with the publication of a number of poems in the magazines of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts. At the same time, he became close to writers and artists grouped around A. N. Olenin (N. I. Gnedich, I. A. Krylov, O. A. Kiprensky, etc.). The Olenin circle, which set itself the task of resurrecting the ancient ideal of beauty on the basis of modern sensitivity, opposed itself to both the Slavicizing archaism of the Shishkovists (see A.V. Shishkov), and the French orientation and cult of trifles widespread among the Karamzinists. Batyushkov’s satire “Vision on the Shores of Lethe” (1809), directed against both camps, becomes the literary manifesto of the circle. During these same years, he began translating T. Tasso’s poem “Jerusalem Liberated,” entering into a kind of creative competition with Gnedich, who translated Homer’s “Iliad.”
"Russian Guys"
Batyushkov’s literary position underwent some changes in 1809-1810, when he became close in Moscow with a circle of younger Karamzinists (P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky), and met N. M. Karamzin himself. Poems of 1809-1812, including translations and imitations of E. Parni, Tibullus, a cycle of friendly messages (“My Penates”, “To Zhukovsky”) form the image of the “Russian Parni” - an epicurean poet, singer - that determines Batyushkov’s entire subsequent reputation laziness and voluptuousness. In 1813 he wrote (with the participation of A.E. Izmailov) one of the most famous literary and polemical works of Karamzinism, “The Singer or Singers in the Conversation of the Slavic Russians,” directed against the “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word.”
In April 1812, Batyushkov became an assistant curator of manuscripts at the St. Petersburg Public Library. However, the outbreak of the war with Napoleon prompts him to return to military service. In the spring of 1813 he went to Germany to join the active army and reached Paris. In 1816 he retired.
The military upheavals, as well as the unhappy love experienced during these years for the Olenins’ pupil A.F. Furman, lead to a deep change in Batyushkov’s worldview. The place of the “little philosophy” of Epicureanism and everyday pleasures is taken by the conviction in the tragedy of existence, which finds its only resolution in the poet’s acquired faith in reward after death and the providential meaning of history. A new set of moods permeates many of Batyushkov’s poems of these years (“Nadezhda”, “To a Friend”, “Shadow of a Friend”) and a number of prose experiments. At the same time, his best love elegies dedicated to Furman were created - “My Genius”, “Separation”, “Tavrida”, “Awakening”. In 1815, Batyushkov was admitted to Arzamas (under the name Achilles, associated with his past merits in the fight against archaists; the nickname often turned into a pun, playing on frequent illnesses Batyushkova: “Ah, heel”), however, disappointed in literary polemics, the poet did not play a noticeable role in the activities of the society.
"Experiments in poetry and prose." Translations
In 1817 Batyushkov completed a series of translations “From the Greek Anthology”. In the same year, a two-volume publication “Experiments in Poetry and Prose” was published, which collected the most significant works of Batyushkov, including the monumental historical elegies “Hesiod and Omir, Rivals” (an adaptation of the elegy of C. Milvois) and “The Dying Tass ”, as well as prose works: literary and art criticism, travel essays, moralizing articles. "Experiments..." strengthened Batyushkov's reputation as one of the leading Russian poets. The reviews noted the classical harmony of Batyushkov’s lyrics, who connected Russian poetry with the muse of southern Europe, primarily Italy and Greco-Roman antiquity. Batyushkov also owns one of the first Russian translations of J. Byron (1820).
Mental crisis. Last verses
In 1818 Batyushkov received an appointment to the Russian diplomatic mission in Naples. A trip to Italy was a long-term dream of the poet, but the difficult impressions of the Neapolitan revolution, work conflicts, and a feeling of loneliness lead him to an increasing mental crisis. At the end of 1820 he sought a transfer to Rome, and in 1821 he went to sea in Bohemia and Germany. The works of these years - the cycle “Imitations of the Ancients”, the poem “You awaken, O Baya, from the tomb...”, the translation of a fragment from “The Bride of Messina” by F. Schiller are marked by increasing pessimism, the conviction of the doom of beauty in the face of death and the ultimate unjustification of earthly things existence. These motives reached their culmination in a kind of poetic testament of Batyushkov - the poem “Do you know what the gray-haired Melchizedek said / saying goodbye to life?” (1824).
At the end of 1821, Batyushkov began to develop symptoms of hereditary mental illness. In 1822 he travels to Crimea, where the disease worsens. After several suicide attempts, he was placed in a psychiatric hospital in the German city of Sonnestein, from where he was discharged due to complete incurability (1828). In 1828-1833 he lived in Moscow, then until his death in Vologda under the supervision of his nephew G. A. Grevens.
He came from an ancient noble family, his father was Nikolai Lvovich Batyushkov (1753-1817). He spent the years of his childhood in the family estate - the village of Danilovskoye. At the age of seven he lost his mother, who suffered from mental illness, which was inherited by Batyushkov and his older sister Alexandra.
In 1797 he was sent to the St. Petersburg boarding house Jacquinot, from where in 1801 he moved to the Tripoli boarding house. In the sixteenth year of his life (1802), Batyushkov left the boarding school and began reading Russian and French literature. At the same time, he became close friends with his uncle, the famous Mikhail Nikitich Muravyov. Under his influence, he began studying ancient literature classical world and became an admirer of Tibullus and Horace, whom he imitated in his first works. In addition, under the influence of Muravyov, Batyushkov developed literary taste and aesthetic sense.
In St. Petersburg, Batyushkov met representatives of the then literary world. He became especially close friends with G. R. Derzhavin, N. A. Lvov, V. V. Kapnist, A. N. Olenin, N. I. Gnedich. In 1805, the magazine “News of Literature” published his poem “Message to My Poems” - Batyushkov’s first appearance in print. Having entered the department of the Ministry of Public Education, Batyushkov became close to some of his colleagues who joined the Karamzin movement and founded the “Free Society of Literature Lovers.”
In 1805, the magazine “News of Literature” published his poem “Message to My Poems” - Batyushkov’s first appearance in print.
In 1807, Batyushkov enlisted in the people's militia (militia) and took part in the Prussian campaign. In the battle of Heilsberg he was wounded and had to go to Riga for treatment. The following year, 1808, Batyushkov took part in the war with Sweden, at the end of which he retired and went to his relatives in the village of Khantonovo, Novgorod province. In the village, he soon began to get bored and was eager to go to the city: his impressionability became almost painful, more and more he was overcome by melancholy and a premonition of future madness.
At the very end of 1809, Batyushkov arrived in Moscow and soon, thanks to his talent, bright mind and good heart found good friends in the best spheres of the then Moscow society. Of the writers there, he became closest to V.L. Pushkin, V.A. Zhukovsky, P.A. Vyazemsky and N.M. Karamzin. The years 1810 and 1811 passed for Batyushkov partly in Moscow, where he had a pleasant time, and partly in Khantonov, where he was moping. Finally, having received his resignation from military service, at the beginning of 1812 he went to St. Petersburg and, with the help of Olenin, entered the service of the Public Library; his life had settled down quite well, although he was constantly worried about the fate of his family and himself: a quick promotion could not be expected, and economic affairs were going worse and worse.
Meanwhile, Napoleon's army entered Russia and began to approach Moscow. Batyushkov again entered military service and, as an adjutant to General Raevsky, together with the Russian army, made the campaign of 1813-1814, which ended with the capture of Paris.
Staying abroad had big influence to Batyushkov, who there first became acquainted with German literature and fell in love with it. Paris and its monuments, libraries and museums also did not pass without a trace on his impressionable nature; but soon he felt a strong homesickness and, after visiting England and Sweden, returned to St. Petersburg. A year later, he finally left military service, went to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg, where he entered Arzamas and took an active part in the activities of this society.
In 1816-1817, Batyushkov prepared for publication his book “Experiments in Poetry and Prose,” which was then published by Gnedich. The book was well received by critics and readers.
In 1818, Batyushkov achieved a long-desired goal: he was assigned to serve in the Neapolitan Russian mission. A trip to Italy was always Batyushkov’s favorite dream, but having gone there, he almost immediately felt unbearable boredom, melancholy and melancholy. By 1821, hypochondria had reached such proportions that he had to leave the service and Italy.
In 1822, the disorder of mental abilities was expressed quite definitely, and since then Batyushkov suffered for 34 years, almost never regaining consciousness, and finally died of typhus on July 7, 1855 in Vologda; buried in the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery, five miles from Vologda. Back in 1815, Batyushkov wrote to Zhukovsky about himself the following words: “From birth I had in my soul black spot, which grew and grew over the years and almost blackened my entire soul”; The poor poet did not foresee that the stain would not stop growing and would soon completely darken his soul.
Batyushkov Konstantin Nikolaevich (1787 - 1855), poet.
Born on May 18 (29 NS) in Vologda into a noble noble family. His childhood years were spent on the family estate - the village of Danilovskoye, Tver province. Home education was supervised by his grandfather, the leader of the nobility of the Ustyuzhensky district.
From the age of ten, Batyushkov studied in St. Petersburg in private foreign boarding schools and spoke many foreign languages.
From 1802 he lived in St. Petersburg in the house of his relative M. Muravyov, a writer and educator who played a decisive role in the formation of the poet’s personality and talent. He studies the philosophy and literature of the French Enlightenment, ancient poetry, and the literature of the Italian Renaissance. For five years he served as an official in the Ministry of Public Education.
In 1805 he made his debut in print with satirical poems “Message to My Poems.” During this period, he wrote poems mainly of the satirical genre ("Message to Chloe", "To Phyllis", epigrams).
In 1807 he enlisted in the people's militia and, as the commander of a hundred-man militia battalion, went on the Prussian campaign. In the battle of Heilsberg he was seriously wounded, but remained in the army and in 1808 - 09 participated in the war with Sweden. After retiring, he devoted himself entirely to literary creativity.
The satire “Vision on the Shores of Lethe,” written in the summer of 1809, marks the beginning of the mature stage of Batyushkov’s work, although it was published only in 1841.
In 1810 - 12 he actively collaborated in the journal "Bulletin of Europe", became close to Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky and other writers. His poems “The Merry Hour”, “The Happy One”, “The Source”, “My Penates”, etc. appear.
During the War of 1812, Batyushkov, who did not join the active army due to illness, experienced “all the horrors of war,” “poverty, fires, hunger,” which was later reflected in the “Message to Dashkov” (1813). In 1813 - 14 he participated in the foreign campaign of the Russian army against Napoleon. The impressions of the war formed the content of many poems: “The Prisoner”, “The Fate of Odysseus”, “Crossing the Rhine”, etc.
In 1814 - 17 Batyushkov traveled a lot, rarely staying in one place for more than six months. He is going through a severe spiritual crisis: disappointment in the ideas of enlightenment philosophy. Religious sentiments are growing. His poetry is painted in sad and tragic tones: the elegy “Separation”, “Shadow of a Friend”, “Awakening”, “My Genius”, “Tavrida”, etc. In 1817 the collection “Experiments in Poems and Prose” was published, which included translations , articles, essays and poems.
In 1819 he left for Italy at the place of his new service - he was appointed an official at the Neopolitan mission. In 1821 he was seized by an incurable mental illness(persecution mania). Treatment in the best European clinics was not successful - Batyushkov never returned to normal life. His last years passed with relatives in Vologda. Died of typhus
Materials used from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.
BATYUSHKOV Konstantin Nikolaevich (05/18/1787-07/7/1855), Russian poet. Born into a family that belonged to the ancient Novgorod nobility. After the early death of his mother, he was brought up in private St. Petersburg boarding schools and in the family of the writer and public figure M. N. Muravyov.
From 1802 - in the service of the Ministry of Public Education (including clerk at Moscow University). He gets close to Radishchev's Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Science and the Arts, but quickly moves away from it. His creative ties were much closer with the circle of A. N. Olenin (I. A. Krylov, Gnedich, Shakhovskoy), where the cult of antiquity flourished. Actively collaborates in the magazine "Flower Garden" (1809).
He joins the literary circle "Arzamas", which actively opposes the "Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word", an association of patriotic writers and linguists (see: A. S. Shishkov). In the satire “Vision on the Shores of Lethe” (1809) he first used the word “Slavophile”.
In the 1810s, Batyushkov became the head of the so-called. "light poetry", dating back to the tradition of anacreoticism of the 18th century. (G.R. Derzhavin, V.V. Kapnist): chanting the joys of earthly life is combined with the affirmation of the poet’s inner freedom from the political system, whose stepson the poet felt himself to be.
The patriotic inspiration that gripped Batyushkov in connection with Patriotic War 1812, takes him beyond the limits of “chamber lyrics”. Under the influence of the hardships of war, the destruction of Moscow and personal upheavals, the poet experiences a spiritual crisis, disillusioned with educational ideas.
In 1822, Batyushkov fell ill with a hereditary mental illness, which forever stopped his literary activity.
(1787 - 1855)Poet.
Born on May 18 (29 NS) in Vologda into a noble noble family. His childhood years were spent on the family estate - the village of Danilovskoye, Tver province. Home education was supervised by his grandfather, the leader of the nobility of the Ustyuzhensky district.
From the age of ten, Batyushkov studied in St. Petersburg in private foreign boarding schools and spoke many foreign languages.
From 1802 he lived in St. Petersburg in the house of his relative M. Muravyov, a writer and educator who played a decisive role in the formation of the poet’s personality and talent. He studies the philosophy and literature of the French Enlightenment, ancient poetry, and the literature of the Italian Renaissance. For five years he served as an official in the Ministry of Public Education.
In 1805 he made his debut in print with the satirical poems “Message to My Poems.” During this period, he wrote poems mainly of the satirical genre ("Message to Chloe", "To Phyllis", epigrams).
In 1807 he enlisted in the people's militia and, as the hundredth commander of a police battalion, went on the Prussian campaign. In the battle of Heilsberg he was seriously wounded, but remained in the army and in 1808 - 09 participated in the war with Sweden. After retiring, he devoted himself entirely to literary creativity.
The satire “Vision on the Shores of Lethe,” written in the summer of 1809, marks the beginning of the mature stage of Batyushkov’s work, although it was published only in 1841.
In 1810 - 12 he actively collaborated in the journal "Bulletin of Europe", became close to Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky and other writers. His poems “The Merry Hour”, “The Happy One”, “The Source”, “My Penates”, etc. appear.
During the War of 1812, Batyushkov, who did not join the active army due to illness, experienced “all the horrors of war,” “poverty, fires, hunger,” which was later reflected in the “Message to Dashkov” (1813). In 1813 - 14 he participated in the foreign campaign of the Russian army against Napoleon. The impressions of the war formed the content of many poems: “The Prisoner”, “The Fate of Odysseus”, “Crossing the Rhine”, etc.
In 1814 - 17 Batyushkov traveled a lot, rarely staying in one place for more than six months. He is going through a severe spiritual crisis: disappointment in the ideas of enlightenment philosophy. Religious sentiments are growing. His poetry is painted in sad and tragic tones: the elegy “Separation”, “Shadow of a Friend”, “Awakening”, “My Genius”, “Tavrida”, etc. In 1817 the collection “Experiments in Poems and Prose” was published, which included translations , articles, essays and poems.
In 1819 he left for Italy for a new service - he was appointed an official at the Neopolitan mission. In 1821 he was overcome by an incurable mental illness (persecution mania). Treatment in the best European clinics was not successful - Batyushkov never returned to normal life. His last years were spent with relatives in Vologda. Died of typhus
July 7 (19 NS) 1855. Buried in the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery.
(1787-1855), Russian poet. The head of the anacreontic trend in Russian lyric poetry ("The Merry Hour", "My Penates", "Bacchae"). Later he experienced a spiritual crisis (“Hope”, “To a Friend”); in the genre of elegy - motives of unrequited love ("Separation", "My Genius"), high tragedy ("The Dying Tass", "The Saying of Melchizedek").
BATYUSHKOV Konstantin Nikolaevich, Russian poet.
Childhood and youth. Start of service
Born into an old but impoverished noble family. Batyushkov's childhood was overshadowed by the death of his mother (1795) from a hereditary mental illness. In 1797-1802 he studied in private boarding schools in St. Petersburg. From the end of 1802, Batyushkov served in the Ministry of Public Education under the leadership of M. N. Muravyov, a poet and thinker who had a deep influence on him. When war with Napoleon was declared, Batyushkov joined the militia (1807) and took part in the campaign in Prussia (he was seriously wounded near Heilsberg). In 1808 he took part in the Swedish campaign. In 1809 he retired and settled on his estate Khantonovo, Novgorod province.
Beginning of literary activity
Batyushkov's literary activity began in 1805-06 with the publication of a number of poems in the journals of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts. At the same time, he became close to writers and artists grouped around A. N. Olenin (N. I. Gnedich, I. A. Krylov, O. A. Kiprensky, etc.). The Olenin circle, which set itself the task of resurrecting the ancient ideal of beauty on the basis of modern sensitivity, opposed itself to both the Slavicizing archaism of the Shishkovists (see A.V. Shishkov), and the French orientation and cult of trifles widespread among the Karamzinists. Batyushkov's satire "Vision on the Shores of Lethe" (1809), directed against both camps, becomes the literary manifesto of the circle. During these same years, he began translating T. Tasso’s poem “Jerusalem Liberated,” entering into a kind of creative competition with Gnedich, who translated Homer’s “Iliad.”
"Russian Guys"
Batyushkov’s literary position underwent some changes in 1809-10, when he became close in Moscow with a circle of younger Karamzinists (P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky), and met N. M. Karamzin himself. Poems of 1809-12, including translations and imitations of E. Parni, Tibullus, a cycle of friendly messages (“My Penates”, “To Zhukovsky”) form the image of the “Russian Parni” - an epicurean poet, singer - that determines Batyushkov’s entire subsequent reputation laziness and voluptuousness. In 1813 he wrote (with the participation of A. E. Izmailov) one of the most famous literary and polemical works of Karamzinism, “The Singer or Singers in the Conversation of the Slavic Russians,” directed against the “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word.”
Fracture
In April 1812, Batyushkov became an assistant curator of manuscripts at the St. Petersburg Public Library. However, the outbreak of the war with Napoleon prompts him to return to military service. In the spring of 1813 he went to Germany to join the active army and reached Paris. In 1816 he retired.
The military upheavals, as well as the unhappy love experienced during these years for the Olenins’ pupil A.F. Furman, lead to a deep change in Batyushkov’s worldview. The place of the “little philosophy” of Epicureanism and everyday pleasures is taken by the conviction in the tragedy of existence, which finds its only resolution in the poet’s acquired faith in reward after death and the providential meaning of history. A new set of moods permeates many of Batyushkov’s poems of these years (“Hope”, “To a Friend”, “Shadow of a Friend”) and a number of prose experiments. At the same time, his best love elegies dedicated to Furman were created - “My Genius”, “Separation”, “Tavrida”, “Awakening”. In 1815, Batyushkov was admitted to “Arzamas” (under the name Achilles, associated with his past merits in the fight against archaists; the nickname often turned into a pun, playing on Batyushkov’s frequent illnesses: “Ah, Khil”), but disappointed in literary polemics, the poet did not played a significant role in the activities of the society.
"Experiments in poetry and prose." Translations
In 1817 Batyushkov completed a series of translations “From the Greek Anthology”. In the same year, a two-volume publication “Experiments in Poetry and Prose” was published, which collected the most significant works of Batyushkov, including the monumental historical elegies “Hesiod and Omir, Rivals” (an adaptation of the elegy of C. Milvois) and “The Dying Tass ", as well as prose works: literary and art criticism, travel essays, moralizing articles. "Experiments..." strengthened Batyushkov's reputation as one of the leading Russian poets. The reviews noted the classical harmony of Batyushkov’s lyrics, who connected Russian poetry with the muse of southern Europe, primarily Italy and Greco-Roman antiquity. Batyushkov also owns one of the first Russian translations of J. Byron (1820).
Mental crisis. Last verses
In 1818 Batyushkov received an appointment to the Russian diplomatic mission in Naples. A trip to Italy was a long-term dream of the poet, but the difficult impressions of the Neapolitan revolution, work conflicts, and a feeling of loneliness lead him to an increasing mental crisis. At the end of 1820 he sought a transfer to Rome, and in 1821 he went to sea in Bohemia and Germany. The works of these years - the cycle “Imitations of the Ancients”, the poem “You awaken, O Baya, from the tomb...”, the translation of a fragment from “The Bride of Messina” by F. Schiller are marked by increasing pessimism, the conviction of the doom of beauty in the face of death and the ultimate unjustification of earthly things existence. These motives reached their culmination in a kind of poetic testament of Batyushkov - the poem “Do you know what the gray-haired Melchizedek said / saying goodbye to life?” (1824).
Disease
At the end of 1821, Batyushkov began to develop symptoms of hereditary mental illness. In 1822 he travels to Crimea, where the disease worsens. After several suicide attempts, he was placed in a psychiatric hospital in the German city of Sonnestein, from where he was discharged due to complete incurability (1828). In 1828-33 he lived in Moscow, then until his death in Vologda under the supervision of his nephew G. A. Grevens.
