Composition

Batyushkov, poet. Was born in Vologda. Belonged to an old noble family. He was brought up in St. Petersburg, in private foreign boarding houses. except French, was fluent in Italian, later in Latin. He served in the military (was a participant in three wars, including the foreign campaign in 1814) and in the petty bureaucratic service, and later in the Russian diplomatic mission in Italy. In 1822, he fell ill with a hereditary mental illness that had been creeping up to him for a long time. From 1802 he settled in the house of the writer MN Muravyov, his relative; then he began to write poetry. He became a member of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts. With the poetic satire "Vision on the Shores of Leta" (1809), which was widely circulated in the lists, Batyushkov took an active part in the controversy with the "Conversation of lovers of the Russian word". Batyushkov was the first to use the word "Slavophil", which was later widely used. Batyushkov joined the literary circle Arzamas, which opposed Beseda, which included representatives of new literary movements - from V. A. Zhukovsky and D. V. Davydov to young Pushkin, whose powerful talent Batiushkov immediately appreciated. He became close to the circle of A. N. Olenin, where the cult of antiquity flourished. Batyushkov's works, published in magazines, in 1817 came out as a separate edition - "Experiments in verse and prose" (in 2 parts).

Batyushkov became the head of the so-called. " light poetry”, Which goes back to the tradition of anacreontika of the 18th century, the most prominent representatives of which were GR Derzhavin and VV Kapnist (“ an example in a syllable, ”as Batyushkov called him). The glorification of the joys of earthly life - friendship, love - was combined in Batyushkov's intimate friendly messages with the assertion of the poet's inner freedom, his independence from the "slavery and chains" of the feudal-absolutist social system, whose stepson he felt keenly about himself. The message "My Penates" (1811-12, publ. 1814) was a programmatic work of this kind; according to Pushkin, it "... breathes with some kind of ecstasy of luxury, youth and pleasure - the syllable trembles and flows - the harmony is charming." An example of "light poetry" is the poem "Bacchante" (published in 1817). Patriotic enthusiasm that gripped Batyushkov in connection with the war of 1812, brought him beyond the "chamber" lyrics (message "To Dashkov", 1813, historical elegy "Crossing the Rhine", 1814, etc.). Under the influence of the painful impressions of the war, the destruction of Moscow and personal upheavals, Batyushkov is experiencing a spiritual crisis.

His poetry is increasingly colored in sad tones (the elegy "Parting", 1812-13; "The Shadow of a Friend", 1814; "Awakening", 1815; "To a Friend", 1815, etc.), sometimes reaching extreme pessimism ("Utterance Melchizedek ", 1821). Among Batyushkov's best elegies are My Genius (1815) and Tavrida (1817). A significant contribution to the development of Russian poetry was the deep lyricism of Batyushkov, combined with the artistry of form, unprecedented until then. Developing the tradition of Derzhavin, he demanded from the poet: "Live as you write, and write as you live." Many poems represent, as it were, pages of Batyushkov's poeticized autobiography, in whose personality the features of a disappointed, early aged, bored "hero of the time" are already visible, which later found artistic expression in the images of Onegin and Pechorin. In terms of poetic skill, the works of ancient and Italian poets were models for Batyushkov. He translated Tibull's elegies, poems by T. Tasso, E. Parni and others. One of the most famous works of Batyushkov, the elegy "Dying Tass" (1817) tragic fate poet - a theme that persistently attracted the attention of Batyushkov.

The genres of "light poetry", according to Batyushkov, require "possible perfection, purity of expression, harmony in syllable, flexibility, fluency" and therefore are the best remedy for the "education" and "improvement" of the poetic language ("Speech on the influence of light poetry on the language", 1816). Batyushkov also wrote in prose, believing that this is also an important school for the poet (mainly essays, articles on literature and art; the most significant of them are "Evening at Cantemir", "Walk to the Academy of Arts"). Batyushkov's verse has reached high artistic perfection. Contemporaries admired his "plasticity", sculpturality ", Pushkin -" Italian "melodiousness (" Italian sounds! What a miracle worker this Batyushkov "). With his translations "From the Greek Anthology" (1817-18) and "Imitations of the Ancients" (1821), Batyushkov prepared the anthological poems of Pushkin. Batiushkov was burdened by the narrowness of themes and motives, the monotony of the genres of his poetry. He conceived a number of monumental works, filled with content "useful to society, worthy of himself and the people", was fond of Byron's work (translated into Russian from "The Wanderings of Childe Harold"). All this was cut short by mental illness, which forever stopped Batyushkov's literary activity. The poet bitterly remarked: “What can I say about my poems! I look like a man who did not reach his goal, but he carried a beautiful vessel on his head, filled with something. The vessel fell off the head, fell and shattered to smithereens, go and find out now what was in it. " Pushkin, opposing critics who attacked Batyushkov's poetry, urged them to "respect his misfortunes and unripe hopes." Batyushkov played a significant role in the development of Russian poetry: along with Zhukovsky, he was the immediate predecessor and literary teacher of Pushkin, who accomplished much of what Batyushkov had begun.

Batyushkov is considered the immediate predecessor of Pushkin, and it is no coincidence - combining the literary discoveries of classicism and sentimentalism, he was one of the founders of the new, "modern" Russian poetry. Batyushkov was the last Russian poet, whose work is clearly divided into lyric genres. The poems of the first period of the poet's literary activity are imbued with epicureanism: the person in his lyrics passionately loves earthly life; the main themes in Batyushkov's poetry are friendship and love. Having abandoned the moralism and mannerism of sentimentalism, he finds new ways of expressing feelings and emotions in verse, extremely bright and vital: Slender camp, entwined around Hops with a yellow crown And flaming lanita Roses with bright crimson And the mouth in which it melts Purple grapes - Everything in the frantic seduces! Fire and poison poured into the heart! ("Bacchante", 1815)

Solitude, friendship, love, peaceful joys of life, poetic dream, admiration for "feelings" and "heart", denial of "cold reason" are the themes defined in Batyushkov's early elegiac verses. At the same time, the theme of animate nature appears, as if participating in the joy of the poet: Merry meadows are ordered, The streams are transparent, sweet garden, Branched willows, oaks, maples, Under your shade - coolness Shall I not eat more? ("Advice to Friends", 1805)

1812 evoked military themes in Batyushkov. Hence his attraction to ode appears. The odic form was applied by him in the poem "Crossing the Rhine", but the ode is no longer revived in its solemn form; these poems turn into elegiac reflections, in which the breadth of the theme (historical run and pictures of the past at the beginning) and the obligatory ending remained from the ode.

The message to Dashkov, depicting the impression of devastated Moscow, as well as the war romances of Batyushkov, including the famous "Gusar", also belonged to this time.

In response to the events of the Patriotic War of 1812, Batiushkov created examples of civil poetry, the patriotic spirit of which is combined with a description of the author's deeply individual experiences:

... while on the field of honor For the ancient city of my fathers I will not sacrifice revenge And life and love for the homeland; While with a wounded hero Who knows the path to glory, Three times I will not put my chest Before enemies in a close formation - My friend, until then I will All are alien to muses and charites, Wreaths, by the hand of love of the suite, And noisy joy in wine! ("To Dashkov", 1813)

Batyushkov also combines random works of a very different nature, sometimes fables that are not typical of his work, fragments of translated poems, romances, fairy tales, epigrams. The first two sections are essential. As for the "messages", Batyushkov's almost all of them are written in the same manner as his "Penates": these are friendly messages of a joking nature. Although such messages evoked imitation, they did not receive further development; the messages of the poets who wrote after Batyushkov, for the most part, belong to other types of messages and quite soon die off in poetry altogether. The more viable genre was elegy. If you carefully examine the composition of the elegies department in Batyushkov's "Experiments", you will immediately see the variety of works included in it. Here each new elegy differs in some respects from the previous one. It is clear that the poems included in the elegies department are already outgrowing the framework of a solid genre.

Batyushkov became the head of the so-called "light poetry", which goes back to the tradition of anacreontika of the 18th century, the most prominent representatives of which were G.R. Derzhavin and V.V. Kapnist ("an example in a syllable," as Batyushkov called him). The glorification of the joys of earthly life - friendship, love - was combined in Batyushkov's intimate friendly messages with the assertion of the poet's inner freedom, his independence from the "slavery and chains" of the feudal-absolutist social system, whose stepson he felt keenly about himself. The message "My Penates" (1811-12, publ. 1814) was a programmatic work of this kind; according to Pushkin, it "... breathes with some kind of ecstasy of luxury, youth and pleasure - the syllable trembles and flows - the harmony is charming." An example of "light poetry" is the poem "Bacchante" (published in 1817).

In terms of poetic skill, the works of ancient and Italian poets were models for Batyushkov. He translated Tibull's elegies, poems by T. Tasso, E. Parni and others. One of the most famous works by Batyushkov, the Dying Tass elegy (1817) is dedicated to the tragic fate of the poet - a theme that persistently attracted Batyushkov's attention.

In the post-war period, Batyushkov's poetry tends to romanticism:

Do you remember how many tears I shed as a baby! Alas! since then the prey of an evil fate, I learned all the sorrows, all the poverty of being. The depths dug by fortune They opened up under me, and the thunder did not stop! Persecuted from country to country, I searched in vain for a haven on the earth: Everywhere her finger is irresistible! ("Dying Tass", 1817)

119 poems were written, of which 26 translations and 6 imitations. His most popular original poems: "Recovery", "Merry Hour", "My Penates", "To D. V. Dashkov", "Crossing the Rhine", "Shadow of a Friend", "On the Ruins of a Swedish Castle", "Taurida" , "Parting", "Awakening", "Memories", "My Genius", "Hope", "Dying Tass", "Bacchante", "From the Greek Anthology".

There are 27 prose works by Batyushkov (from 1809 - 1816), differing in stylistic merit. The main ones are: "An excerpt from the letters of a Russian officer from Finland", "Praise to sleep", "A walk in Moscow", "On the poet and poetry", "A walk through the Academy of Arts", "Speech on the influence of light poetry on the language" ( to which he gave great importance), "On the works of Muravyov", "Evening at Kantemir's", "Something about morality based on philosophy and religion." It is impossible not to mention the "notebook of Batyushkov entitled:" Someone else is my treasure. " In this book there is a lot of translation, but also different memories, sketches, independent thoughts, not devoid of interest.

Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov. Portrait by an unknown artist, 1810s

The correspondence between Batyushkov and his friends, especially with Gnedich, to whom 85 letters were written, is almost as important. Of the comic works of Batyushkov, the most famous are "Vision on the Shores of Leta" and "A Singer in the Camp of the Slavic Russians". Both are dedicated to the ridicule of the "Conversation" party with Shishkov at the head.

Batyushkov's main merit is the development of the verse; he completely mastered his harmony and realized that it was necessary to learn it from the Italian poets, whose passionate admirer he had always been. Permanent models for translations were: Casti, Petrarch, Tibullus, Guys, Tasso, but Ariosto was Batyushkov's ideal. "Take the soul of Virgil, he writes, the imagination of Tass, the mind of Homer, the wit of Voltaire, the good nature of La Fontaine, the flexibility of Ovid - here is Ariost." Belinsky wrote about Batyushkov: “Such verses are excellent in our time, at their very first appearance they should have generated general attention, as a harbinger of an imminent revolution in Russian poetry. These are not yet Pushkin's poems, but after them one should have expected not some others, but Pushkin's. " He "prepared the way" for Pushkin, whose first works are imitations of Batyushkov. The young man Pushkin found dissonance in Zhukovsky's poems and, striving for perfection, imitated Batyushkov.

KONSTANTIN BATYUSHKOV. "Hope". Biblical plot. Video

We must not forget that if Karamzin had such predecessors as Fonvizin and Derzhavin, then Batyushkov did not have anyone and completely independently worked out the harmony of verse His poetry is distinguished by extraordinary sincerity. "Live as you write (he says) and write as you live: otherwise all the echoes of your lyre will be false." Batyushkov remained faithful to this ideal throughout his life.

His poetry has a partly non-Russian character, cut off from his native soil. The influence of Italian poets affected the Epicurean direction of Batyushkov's lyre. The fight against the Shishkovists, who deeply outraged the poet, contributed to the removal from the motives more characteristic of Russian nature. “The fatherland must love; whoever does not love him is a monster. But is it possible to love ignorance? Is it possible to love manners and customs, from which we have been distant for centuries and, what is even more, for a whole century of enlightenment? "

Batyushkov's poetry, distinguished by its sincerity, was in close connection with his personal life. As his life up to joining the militia, poetry was empty. After he survived the war, traveled abroad, his poetry received a more serious direction (“

The historical upheavals of the end of the century shattered the harmonious balance between man and the world that prevailed in poetry. Was required new approach, a more sophisticated and sensitive analysis tool.

In the poems of Batyushkov, the most important problem of the era was developed with amazing artistry - the relationship between the "general" life of mankind and the mental life of an individual. Batyushkov is one of the first poets in Russia, in whose work the image of the author was consciously built as a thinking person who perceives and evaluates the world.

The beginning of the 19th century brought with it an idea of ​​deeply personal ties between man and the outside world. A single human consciousness, anew, "for itself" comprehending universal life, declared its absolute value through romanticism. Later, Heine wrote: “Under each tombstone is the history of the whole world” 6.

Batyushkov is a figure in many ways characteristic of this transitional period. His personality, his reflective consciousness basically belong to the new era. It is almost separated by an abyss from Derzhavin, which, with its integrity, is all in the 18th century.

The first biographer of the poet, L.N. Maikov, compares Batyushkov with the pre-Byron hero of the beginning of the century - Rene from the novel of the same name by Chateaubriand. Batyushkov was deeply characterized by a feeling of discord between ideal and reality. His worldview and creativity have a pronounced humanistic basis, which was based on the broad tradition of European thought. From the standpoint of this somewhat abstract humanism, the poet regarded his modernity. He was painfully worried about the consequences of the French Revolution.

Batyushkov's position differed from Karamzin's, not devoid of fatalism. According to Karamzin, a person and his life is an inevitable mixture of shadow and light, good and evil, sadness and joy, continuously passing into one another and inseparable from each other. Hence the "melancholy" of Karamzin. The thought of the imperfection of the spiritual nature of man made Karamzin almost above all value self-restraint, moral discipline, the ability to pity, to good deeds, manifesting the good inherent in man.

Karamzin felt pity for the person, and not admiration for him (this is the basis of his sentimentalism). According to Batyushkov, the meaning of life is in the joy it gives:

While running after us
Gray-haired god of time
And ruins the meadow with flowers
Ruthless scythe
My friend! hurry up for happiness
Let us fly to the path of life;
Let's get drunk on voluptuousness
And we will outstrip death;
We will pick the flowers by stealth
Under the blade of the scythe
And the laziness of a short life
We will extend, we will extend the hours!

("My Penates").

In his understanding of the general tasks of literature, Batyushkov is an undoubted Karamzinist, although he was distinguished from Karamzin at first by epicureanism, and then by the gloominess of life. After some hesitation in 1812-1813, he was faithful to Europeanism to the very end and condemned the "Slavophiles" (then the followers of AS Shishkov were called) for enmity towards European enlightenment and idealization of ancient barbarism. Batyushkov is the author of brilliant satire on the "Varyagorussians" ("A Vision on the Shores of Leta" and "A Singer in a Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word").

The poet believed that a true patriot of Russia should think most of all about her enlightenment.

For Russian poetry, Batyushkov saw only one - the all-European - way.

V early XIX century in European art, classicism gave way to romanticism. At the very center of the emerging new poetry were the tasks of the lyrical expression of the personality.

And yet, with the active assistance of Batyushkov, a matter of paramount importance was accomplished: "love rhymes" were to enter the field of "high poetry" and become an expression of a person's worldview in all the fullness of his being.

"Light poetry" as a genre flourished in Russia in the last third of the 18th century (drinking songs, romances, friendly messages, elegies), but it represented both ideologically and artistically the periphery of poetry, since the "small", "inner "The world was, according to the genre thinking of classicism, isolated from the" big "," external ". In the 18th century, the ode was supposed to solve serious problems of human life (such is Derzhavin's ode). For Batyushkov, an elegy begins to serve this purpose.

The essence of Batyushkov's poetic method is understood in different ways. It is customary to speak of his poetry as an example of literary convention; this is the interpretation of Yu. N. Tynyanov and L. Ya. Ginzburg. The views of V.V. Vinogradov and G.A.

As applied to Batyushkov, it is still impossible to speak of romantic individualism.

True, he already had an idea, unusual for the previous literary era, about the poet's duty to choose the kind of poetry that corresponds to his spiritual experience.

In his work, the poet creates a peculiar, very complex system of artistic mediation and transformations, with the help of which he builds his author's image.

Everyone who read Batyushkov's poems forever remembered the harmonious image of the "author", at first passionately carried away by the joys of being that accompanied him even to the "kingdom of shadows", and then just as passionately mourned their frailty. Innocent, kind, passionate, peaceful, unselfish - this is how the poet is portrayed to us:

Wine is not fragrant
Not a fat incense
The poet brings you,
But tears of tenderness
But hearts are quiet heat
And the songs are sweet
The gift of the goddesses of Permes!

("My Penates")

This harmonious self-portrait, however, least of all corresponded to the character of Batyushkov. Here is another, very expressive self-portrait, sketched by the poet in his notebook. Its features are inconsistency, disharmony, a tendency to reflection:

In his lyrics, Batyushkov could not yet recreate this purely romantic character, with such a distinct attitude towards "demonism," a character that leads directly to Onegin and Pechorin. In addition, he did not want to portray himself in this way in his poetry.

The tragic content of Batyushkov's later lyrics does not destroy the integrity of the harmonic image of the "author". In the mind of the reader, the idea of ​​his spiritual path arises as a path in its own natural way: from a passionate sensation of the great fullness and value of life to grief about its loss.

This pont is majestic! Azure king of the desert
Oh sun! you are wonderful among heavenly wonders!
And there is so much beauty on earth!
But all fake or in vain silver:
Cry mortal! cry! Your good
In the hand of the strict Nemesis!

("Imitation of the Ancients")

In the later poems of Batyushkov - the ideal of courage, the willingness to pay with dignity with life for the tested joy of being:

Do you want honey, son? - do not be afraid of sting;
The crown of victory? - boldly to fight!
Do you crave pearls? - so go down
To the bottom, where the crocodile gapes under the water.
Do not be afraid! God will decide. Only to the brave he is a father,
Only brave pearls, honey or death ... or a crown.

All this was written when Batyushkov was already tormented by fears, suspicions, morbid suspiciousness, when the symptoms of mental illness that frightened his friends and relatives were already evident.

For the first time in Russian poetry, Batyushkov created a "lyrical hero". Derzhavin's spontaneous autobiography is a phenomenon of a completely different order.

The expression "lyrical hero" is sometimes used broadly, denoting the author's image in poetry. Since the simple substitution of one term for another is not fruitful, he also has strong opponents. Clarifying this term, L. Ya. Ginzburg applies it only in those cases when the author's personality in the lyrics acts as the main "object" of the image36.

The term "lyrical hero" really helps to distinguish between the various ways of expressing the inner world of the poet.

From the poets of the Pushkin era, the "lyrical hero" was created by Batyushkov, Denis Davydov, young Zhukovsky, Yazykov. (Delvig's stylizations, being poetic masks, are even further removed from the poet's real emotional experience.)

Individuality in Batyushkov's poems is not alien to a kind of "polysemy", and here, perhaps, one of the clues to the attractiveness of his poetry.

In the poetry of classicism, the author's image was essentially determined by the genre in which the work was written; and the "Epicurean" author, as well as the Odic "author", etc., was an abstraction. Not he, the bearer of feelings of joy, love, friendship, was the subject of the image, but these feelings themselves in their abstract, "pure" form.

In Batiushkov's elegy, the genre "author" by nature is transformed into a "lyrical hero" - into an object of depiction, into a character, into an individuality. Epicureanism, genre in origin, becomes an individual characteristic of the lyrical hero, who personified the value of life in the poet's understanding.

Love for Batyushkov, like beauty, is the "personification" of life, image, symbol earthly life. The qualities that Batiushkov's lyrical hero is endowed with are designed to symbolize the fullness of physical being. This is youth, a feeling of love, beauty.

The beloved of the priest's hero is always perfectly beautiful. Her lips are invariably scarlet, her eyes are blue, the "Lanites" glow like roses, her locks fall in a golden or chestnut wave; her hands are lily, etc. She is fragrant and decorated with fragrant flowers:

Batyushkov argues that beauty is the most important of the properties of life and belongs only to her; in the presence of death, even a beautiful lily loses its beauty, becoming like a wax statue: ("Imitations of the ancients")

Batyushkov's love is not singled out into a certain isolated world of pleasures, but is associated with a wide range of high values ​​of human life. The hero of Batyushkov's erotic poems is not only an ardent lover: he is also endowed with a thirst for independence, selflessness, and humanity.

Antiquity was for Batyushkov the ideal of harmonious relationships between man and the world. That is why the importance of the antique theme is so great in his poetry.

The theme of antiquity - the focus of the most important problematics of classicism - gradually yielded its positions to the theme of the Middle Ages, raised on the shield by romantics. But she still attracted artistic thought.

Batiushkov's poetry is "theatrical" (this trait, in principle, goes back to the peculiarities of the poetry of classicism). In the poem "My Penates", this is an episode with Lileta's dressing up: Lileta enters in the clothes of a warrior, then throws them off and appears before the hero and the "audience" in the attire of a shepherdess:

And now with a gentle smile
Sits down by the fire
By the hand of a snow-white
Leaning over me ...

The nature of this "action" is scenic, as is the episode with the warrior (the warrior, in turn, must "knock, enter, dry himself" and start a song about his campaigns). Often, Batyushkov's poem is constructed as an appeal of the hero to those present right there ("Joy", "Ghost", "False Fear", "Lucky Man" and many others). The hero seems to be commenting on the scene in front of him.

Initial phrases are characteristic of Batyushkov's poetry, where “I” immediately attracts attention: “I feel that my gift in poetry has extinguished” (“Elegy”); “It was in vain that I showered flowers on the altar” (“Tibull's Elegy III”); “I left the misty coast of Albion” (“The Shadow of a Friend”); "My friend! I saw a sea of ​​evil "(" To Dashkov "); "Forgive me, my balladist" ("To Zhukovsky"); “How I love, my comrade” (“To Nikita”); "Do you remember, my invaluable friend" ("False fear"); "Messalla! Without me, you rush along the waves ”(“ Elegy from Tibullus ”); “Dreams! - everywhere you accompanied me "(" Remembrance "); "Fatherly penates, O my pestuns!" ("My Penates"), etc.

In all three historical elegies of Batyushkov (the elegy "Dying Tass", of course, is given on behalf of the Italian poet) there is a personal beginning: "I am here, on these rocks hanging above the water ..." ("On the ruins of a castle in Sweden"), “Oh, joy! I am standing by the waters of the Rhine! .. "(" Crossing the Rhine "), etc. Batyushkov is a lyricist both where he is" theatrical "and where he is epic.

Another type of Batiushkov's elegy is the "intimate" elegy of disappointment.

Among the works of Batyushkov, there are several intimate elegies written at different times, where the poet's personal feeling is expressed more directly. This is "Memoirs of 1807" and Recovery (both between 1807-1809); "Evening" (1810); "The Shadow of a Friend", "Elegy" ("I feel my gift in poetry has extinguished ...", 1815), "Parting" ("In vain left the country of my fathers ..."), "Awakening" (1815). The feeling of grief is due to unhappy love, loss of friendship, personal emotional experience. Batyushkov reaches here not only emotional tension, but also true psychologism.

Elegies of this type can be divided into two groups. The first consists of poems in which the experience is recreated using epic or dramatic techniques.

The lyricism of Batyushkov's most intimate elegies is very soft, gentle, restrained, alien to any affectation, not only pathetic, but also “sensitive”. Lyrical self-disclosure is carried out not so much by immersion in oneself as by the image outside world, awakening the feelings of the poet. So, in "Recovery" and especially in "My Genius" the compositional center is the image of the beloved woman, to whom the poet's grateful delight is addressed. In Awakening, the intensity of love longing is given as insensitivity to the wondrous beauty of nature, which has become the main subject of the image:

Nor the sweetness of pink rays
Forerunners of the morning Phoebus,
Not the gentle shine of the azure of the sky,
Not the smell that blows from the fields
Nor the fast years of the zealous horse
Along the slope of velvet meadows,
And the barking of the hounds, and the ringing of the horns
Around a deserted bay -
Nothing cheers the soul
A soul troubled by dreams ... 52

The discord between the infinitely attractive world and the soul, which in its anguish is alien to pleasure, is for the first time in Russian poetry taken as the basis of the composition itself. In a similar way, Baratynsky, Batyushkov's heir, will subsequently build his "Autumn".

Poetry of Batyushkov is very complex with its various artistic and historical material, multi-layered and polysemantic. Her entire figurative structure is saturated with "bookish", historical, cultural, etc. associations.

Batyushkov stands at the very beginning of a new era of Russian lyric poetry. Creating his original poetic system, he experienced great difficulties.

Everyone knows the Vologda poet Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov. His biography is bright and tragic. The poet, whose creative finds were perfected by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, was a pioneer in the development of the melodiousness of the Russian language. He was the first to notice in him, "somewhat stern and stubborn", remarkable "strength and expressiveness." Batyushkov's creative ideas were recognized as classical even during his lifetime by the entire Russian poetic world of his day, and first of all by Karamzin and Zhukovsky.

Childhood

The poet's life dates are 05/18/1787 - 07/07/1855. He belonged to the old noble family of the Batyushkovs, which included generals, public figures, scientists.

What can the biography of Batyushkov tell about the poet's childhood? Interesting facts will come later, but for now it is worth noting that the child suffered from the death of his beloved mother. Alexandra Grigorievna Batyushkova (nee Berdyaev) died eight years after the birth of Kostya. Were the years spent on the family estate in the village of Danilovskoye (modern Vologda region) happy? Unlikely. Konstantin's father, Nikolai Lvovich Batyushkov, a bilious and nervous man, did not pay due attention to children. He had a brilliant education and suffered from the fact that he was unclaimed in the service because of a disgraced relative participating in the palace conspiracy.

Study, self-education

However, at the behest of his father, Konstantin Batyushkov studied in expensive, but non-specialized St. Petersburg boarding schools. The biography of his youth is marked by an act of strong-willed and far-sighted. He, despite the protests of his father, gave up schooling in boarding schools and zealously began to educate himself.

This period (from 16 to 19 years old) is marked by the transformation of the young man into a humanitarian competent person. Konstantin's benefactor and beacon was his influential uncle Mikhail Nikitich Muravyov, a senator and poet, a trustee of Moscow University. It was he who managed to instill in his nephew respect for ancient poetry. Thanks to him, Batyushkov, having studied Latin, became an admirer of Horace and Tibullus, which became the basis for his future work. He began to seek endless edits from the Russian language for the classical melodiousness.

Also, thanks to the patronage of his uncle, eighteen-year-old Constantine began to serve as a clerk at the Ministry of Education. In 1805, his poem was first published in the Novosti Russian Literature magazine. He meets Petersburg poets - Derzhavin, Kapnist, Lvov, Olenin.

First injury and recovery

In 1807, Constantine's benefactor and first adviser, his uncle, died. Perhaps, if he were alive, he alone would have persuaded his nephew not to expose his fragile nervous system hardships and hardships of military service. But in March 1807 the year is coming volunteer for the Prussian campaign Konstantin Batyushkov. He is wounded in the bloody battle of Heilsberg. He is sent for treatment first to Riga, and then released to the family estate. While in Riga, young Batyushkov falls in love with the merchant's daughter Emilia. This passion inspired the poet to write the poems "Memories of 1807" and "Recovery".

War with Sweden. Mental trauma

Having recovered, Konstantin Batyushkov in 1808 again went to war with Sweden as part of the Jaeger Guards regiment. He was a courageous officer. Death, blood, loss of friends - all this was hard for Konstantin Nikolaevich. His soul was not hardened in the war. After the war, the officer came to rest at the estate of the sisters Alexandra and Varvara. They noted with dismay that the war had left a heavy imprint on the unstable psyche of their brother. He became overly impressionable. He periodically experienced hallucinations. In letters to Gnedich, his friend in the ministry, the poet writes bluntly that he fears that in ten years from now he will completely lose his mind.

However, friends tried to distract the poet from painful thoughts. And they partly succeed in this. In 1809, Batyushkov Konstantin Nikolaevich plunges into the Petersburg salon and literary life. A short biography does not describe all the events that happened in the poet's life. This time is marked by personal acquaintances with Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky. Ekaterina Fyodorovna Muravyova (the widow of a senator who at one time helped Batyushkov) brought their cousin together with them.

In 1810, Batyushkov retired from military service... In 1812, with the help of friends Gnedich and Olenin, he got a job as an assistant curator of manuscripts in the St. Petersburg Public Library.

War with Napoleonic France

At the beginning Patriotic War with France sought to get into active army retired officer Batyushkov Konstantin Nikolaevich. He commits a noble deed: the poet accompanies the widow of his benefactor EF Muravyova to Nizhny Novgorod. Only since March 29, 1813, he serves as an adjutant in the Rylsky infantry regiment. For courage in the battle of Leipzig, the officer is awarded the 2nd degree. Impressed by this battle, Batyushkov wrote the poem "The Shadow of a Friend" in honor of the deceased comrade IA Petin.

His work reflects the evolution of the poet's personality, from romanticism to match the era of the Enlightenment to the greatness of the spirit of the Christian thinker. His poetry about war (poems "On the ruins of a castle in Sweden", "Shadow of a friend", "Crossing the Rhine") is close in spirit to a simple Russian soldier, it is realistic. Batyushkov writes sincerely, without embellishing reality. The biography and work of the poet, described in the article, are becoming more and more interesting. K. Batyushkov begins to write a lot.

Non-reciprocal love

In 1814, after the military campaign, Batyushkov returned to St. Petersburg. Here he will be disappointed: the beautiful Anna Furman, a pupil of the Olenins' house, does not reciprocate his feelings. Rather, she says "yes" only at the request of her guardians. But the scrupulous Konstantin Nikolaevich cannot accept such ersatz love and, offended, refuses such a marriage.

He is awaiting transfer to the guard, but the bureaucratic delays are endless. Without waiting for an answer, in 1816 Batyushkov resigned. However, the years 1816-1817 turned out to be extremely fruitful for the poet in terms of creativity. He actively participates in the life of the literary society "Arzamas".

The period of revelation in creativity

In 1817 his collected works "Experiments in verse and prose" were published.

His rhymes endlessly ruled, achieving the facetness of Batiushkov's words. The biography of this man's work began with his professional study of ancient languages. And he managed to find echoes of rhymes in Russian poetics Latin and ancient Greek!

Batyushkov became the inventor of that poetic Russian language, which Alexander Sergeevich admired: "the syllable ... trembles," "the harmony is charming." Batyushkov is a poet who found a treasure, but could not use it. His life is clearly divided at the age of thirty into "before and after" by a black stripe of paranoid schizophrenia, manifested in persecution mania. This disease was hereditary in his family through his mother. The eldest of his four sisters, Alexandra, suffered from her.

Progressive paranoid schizophrenia

In 1817, Konstantin Batyushkov plunges into mental anguish. The biography suggests that there was a difficult relationship with his father (Nikolai Lvovich), which ended in complete discord. And in 1817 the parent dies. This was the impetus for the poet's conversion to deep religiosity. Zhukovsky supported him morally during this period. Another friend, A.I. Turgenev, procured a diplomatic post for the poet in Italy, where Batyushkov stays from 1819 to 1921.

A strong psychological breakdown of the poet occurred in 1821. Caused him boorish attack (libelous verses "B..ov from Rome") against him in the journal "Son of the Fatherland". It was after this that persistent signs of paranoid schizophrenia began to appear in his health.

Batyushkov Konstantin Nikolayevich spent the winter of 1821-1822 in Dresden, periodically falling into madness. The biography of his work will be interrupted here. The poem "Testament of Melchizedek" becomes Batyushkov's swan song.

The poor life of a sick person

The poet's further life can be called the destruction of the personality, progressive madness. at first, Muravyov's widow tried to take care of him. However, this soon became impossible: the attacks of persecution mania intensified. V next year Emperor Alexander I appropriated his treatment in a Saxon psychiatric institution. However, the four-year treatment had no effect. Upon arrival in Moscow, Konstantin whom we are considering, feels better. Once it was visited by Alexander Pushkin. Shocked by the miserable look of Konstantin Nikolaevich, the follower of his melodic rhymes writes the poem "God forbid me to go crazy."

The last 22 years of the existence of a mentally ill person have passed at the house of his guardian - nephew Grevens G.A. Here Batyushkov died during a typhus epidemic. The poet was buried at the Vologda Spaso-Prilutsky monastery.

Conclusion

The work of Batyushkov in Russian literature occupies a significant place between Zhukovsky and the era of Pushkin. Later, Alexander Sergeevich will call K. Batyushkov his teacher.

Batyushkov developed the genres of "light poetry". In his opinion, her flexibility and fluidity can beautify Russian speech. Among the poet's best elegies are "My Genius" and "Tavrida".

By the way, Batyushkov also left behind several articles, the most famous - "Evening at Cantemir", "Walk to the Academy of Arts".

The main lesson from Konstantin Nikolaevich, which the author of "Eugene Onegin" took over, was the creative need to first "experience with the soul" the plot of the future work before taking up the pen.

Batyushkov Konstantin Nikolaevich lived such a life. A short biography, unfortunately, cannot cover all the details of his difficult fate.