Apollon Grigoryev
Encyclopedia
1822 in literature
The year 1822 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Thursday-evening class" begins*Percy Bysshe Shelley dies-New books:*Hans Christian Andersen - Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave...
-October 7, 1864
1864 in literature
The year 1864 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*Ambrose Bierce is wounded at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.*Charles Baudelaire leaves Paris for Belgium in the hope of resolving his financial difficulties....
) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n poet, literary and theatrical critic, translator, memoirist, as well as the author of a number of popular songs and romances.
Biography
Apollon Grigoryev was born in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, where his father was the secretary of the City magistrate. He received good education at home and studied in the Moscow University.
Literary career
In about 1845 several of his poems were published by Otechestvennye ZapiskiOtechestvennye Zapiski
Otechestvennye Zapiski was a Russian literary magazine published in St Petersburg on a monthly basis between 1818 and 1884. The journal served liberal-minded readers, known as the intelligentsia...
, then in Repertuar and Pantheon appeared a number of short, unremarkable articles of different y genres: verses, critical articles, theatrical reviews, and translations. In 1846 Grigoryev published a separate book of his poems, which was met by rather harsh criticism. Subsequently Grigoryev wrote little original poetry, but focused on translation: from Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
, Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
), from Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
("To parizinu", fragments from Child Harold
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...
, etc.), Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, Delavigne
Casimir Delavigne
Jean-François Casimir Delavigne was a French poet and dramatist.-Biography:Delavigne was born at Le Havre, but was sent to Paris to be educated at the Lycée Napoleon. He read extensively...
. Grigoryev's years in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
were the stormiest; he became more and more extensively a victim of the Russian "weakness", to which he was first introduced by student revelry. In 1847 he returned to Moscow, where he became the teacher of jurisprudence in the 1st Moscow secondary school, as well as actively collaborating in Moscow. City. Leaf. In 1847, he married Lydia Fedorovna Korsh, the sister of the well-known writers Evgenii and Valentin Korsh, but for some period remained dissipated and lived a less than fully productive lifestyle.
Moskvityanin
In 1850 he became editor of Moskvityanin and leader of the remarkable circle known as the "young editorial staff of Moskvityanin". Without any efforts from the representatives of the "old editorial staff", Mikhail PogodinMikhail Pogodin
Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin was a Russian historian and journalist who, jointly with Nikolay Ustryalov, dominated the national historiography between the death of Nikolay Karamzin in 1826 and the rise of Sergey Solovyov in the 1850s. He is best remembered as a staunch proponent of the Normanist...
, Stepan Shevyrev, and Alexander Veltman
Alexander Veltman
Alexander Fomich Veltman was one of the most successful Russian prose writers of the 1830s and 1840s, "popular for various modes of Romantic fiction—historical, Gothic, fantastic, and folkloristic." He was one of the pioneers of Russian science fiction....
, somehow around their periodical was assembled, in Grigoryev's words, "the young, daring, drunk, but honest and shining by gifts" friendly circle, into composition of which entered Alexander Ostrovsky, Aleksey Pisemsky
Aleksey Pisemsky
Aleksey Feofilaktovich Pisemsky was a Russian novelist and dramatist who was regarded as an equal of Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoevsky during his lifetime, but whose reputation suffered a spectacular decline in the 20th century. A realistic playwright, along with Aleksandr Ostrovsky he was...
, Almazov, A. Potekhin, Pecherskiy-Melnikov, Edel'son, Lev Mey
Lev Mey
-Biography:Mei was born on 13/25 February 1822, in Moscow. His father was a German officer who was wounded in the Battle of Borodino and died young. His mother was Russian. Mei completed his studies in Moscow in 1841 and served in the office of the Governor for 10 years. He became part of the...
, Berg, Gorbunov, etc. None of them not was a Slavophile
Slavophile
Slavophilia was an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia. There were also similar movements in...
in the orthodox sense, but Moskvityanin attracted them all because here they could freely base their social and political ideology on the foundation of Russian reality. Grigoryev was the chief theorist of the circle and its standard-bearer. In the 60's he reached his apogee.
Later years
Grigoryev wrote for Moskvityanin until it folded in 1856. After that he worked for the Russian Conversation, the Library for Reading, the initial Russian Word, where he was for a while one of three editors, for the Russian Peace, Svetoch, the Syn Otechestva of Starchevskiy, the Russian Herald of Katkov. Nothing settled came up.In 1861 arose the "Epoch
Epoch (Russian magazine)
Epoch was a Russian literary magazine published in 1864-65 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his brother Mikhail.-Publication history:The first two combined numbers of Epoch, for January and February, 1864, were published in March,1864, containing the opening chapters of Notes from Underground by Fyodor...
" of the Dostoyevsky brothers, and he again entered onto the literary stage. As in "Moskvityanin", here was grouped the entire circle of the writers of "pochvennikov" - it was insurance, the Averkis, Dostoyevskys, etc., connect together with both the generality of sympathies and antipathies and with personal friendship. To g. they all related with the sincere respect. Soon, however, to it sensed also in this medium what the cold relation to its mystical broadcastings, in it in the same year left into the Orenburg by teacher it was Russian. language and literature in the military school. Not without the enthusiasm it undertook by g. the matter, but it very rapidly cooled, and in yr it returned to Petersburg and again began a disorderly life of literary Bohemia, to the seat in the debt prison inclusively. In 1863. "Time" was forbidden. G. moved to the weekly "anchor". It edited newspaper and it wrote the theatrical reviews, which unexpectedly enjoyed great success, because of the unusual animation, which g. introduced into the reporterskuyu routine and the dryness of theatrical marks. It investigated the game of actors with the same carefulness and with the same passionate enthusiasm, with which it related to the phenomena of remaining skills. In this case it, besides thin taste, manifested numerous acquaintance with the German and French theorists of stage skill. In 1864 G. "Time" is resurrected in the form of "epoch". Grigoryev again undertakes the line of business of the "first critic", but already temporarily. The hard drinking, which passed directly into the physical, agonizing ailment, cracked powerful organism Grigoryev died in Petersburg. He is buried on the Mitrofaniyevskom cemetery, next to the same victim of wine - a poet Lev Mey
Lev Mey
-Biography:Mei was born on 13/25 February 1822, in Moscow. His father was a German officer who was wounded in the Battle of Borodino and died young. His mother was Russian. Mei completed his studies in Moscow in 1841 and served in the office of the Governor for 10 years. He became part of the...
.
Grigoryev's articles, which had been scattered along the different periodicals, were in 1876 assembled into one volume by Nikolay Strakhov
Nikolay Strakhov
Nikolay Nikolayevich Strakhov, also transliterated as Nikolai Strahov , was a Russian philosopher, publicist and literary critic who shared the ideals of pochvennichestvo. He was a long-time friend and correspondent of Leo Tolstoy....
.
The critique
To give any precise formulation of the critical views of Grigoryev is not easy for many reasons. Clarity never entered into the composition of Grigoryev's critical talent; extreme confusion and the darkness of account they did not for free frighten away public from its articles. The specific idea about the basic features of world view G. prevents the complete indiscipline of thought in its articles. With the same disorder, with which it burnt physical forces, it spent its mental wealth, without allowing oneself the labor to compile the precise plan of article and without having a force to restrain from the temptation to have a talk immediately about the questions, which are simultaneously encountered. Because the most significant part of its articles is placed in "Moskvityanin", "Time" and to "Epoch", where in the chapter of the matter stood either it itself or its friends, these articles simply strike with their carelessness. He himself excellently realized the lyric disorder of his writings, their time himself described as the "articles careless, pisannye to the ploughing", but this he pleased itself as the guarantee of their complete "sincerity". For entire his literary life he never definitely explain his world view. It was so unclear even to the nearest its friends and admirers, what his last article - the "paradoxes of organic criticism" (1864) - as usual, not finished and treating about thousands of things, besides main object, is answer to Dostoyevsky's invitation to present finally critical profession de foi its. G. itself entire more frequent and more willingly called its criticism "organic", in the difference both from the camp of "theorists" - Chernishevsky, Nikolai Dobrolyubov, Dmitri Pisarev and from the criticism of "aesthetical", that protects the principle of "skill for the skill", and from the criticism of "historical", by which it implied Belinskiy. Belinskiy g. was placed unusually highly. He called him the "immortal champion of ideas", "with the great and powerful spirit", with the "nature on the truth of brilliant". But Belinskiy saw in the skill only reflection of life and concept itself about the life in it was too direct and "goal is logical". On G. "life is something mysterious and not exhausted, the abyss, which absorbs any final reason, the immense expanse, in which frequently it disappears, as wave in the ocean, the logical conclusion any clever head - something even ironic and at the same time complete of love, which generates from itself peaces after the peaces". In conformity with this "organic view recognizes for its starting point creative, direct, natural, vital forces. In other words: not one mind, with its logical requirements and generated by them theories, but mind is plus life and its organic manifestations ". However, "snake position; what there is - that reasonably "G. decisively condemned. The mystical admiration of the slavophiles before the Russian people spirit it recognized "narrow" and only Khomyakov placed very highly, and that because it "one of the slavophiles the thirst of ideal combined astonishingly with the faith in infinity of life and therefore it were not calmed on ideal'chikakh" of Konstantin AksakovKonstantin Aksakov
Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov was a Russian critic and writer, one of the earliest and most notable Slavophiles. He wrote plays, social criticism, and histories of the ancient Russian social order...
. In the book of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
about Shakespeare G. saw one of the quite one-piece formulations of the "organic" theory, followers of which he considered also Renan
Renan
Renan may refer to:Places* Renan, Virginia, United States* Renan, Switzerland, a village in the canton of BernePeople* Ernest Renan, French philosopher and writer* Renan Augustinho Marques, a Brazilian football striker born in 1983...
, Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
and Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
. But the "initial, huge ore" of organic theory, according to Grigoryev, "SOCh. Schelling in all phases of his development ". G. with the pride called itself the student of this "great teacher". The persuasion g. emerges from the admiration before the organic force of life in its diverse manifestations that the abstract, naked truth, in its pure form, is inaccessible to us, that we can master only the truth colored, expression of which can be only national skill. Pushkin is great by no means with one size of his artistic talent: he is great because let us realize in himself a whole series of foreign influences into something the completely independent. In Pushkin the first time were isolated and clearly was designated "our Russian physiognomy, true measure of all our public, moral and artistic sympathies, complete description of the type of Russian soul
Russian soul
The term Russian soul has been used in literature to describe Russian spirituality. The writings of many Russian writers such as Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky offer descriptions of the Russian soul....
". With the special love was stopped, therefore, g. on the personality Of belkina, entirely almost not commented by Belinskiy, on "Captain's daughter" and "Dubrovskiy". With the same love stopped it on Maxim Maksimovich from the "Hero of our time", also, with the special hatred - on Pechorin as one of the "predatory" types, which are completely alien to Russian spirit. Skill, in the essence herself to its, not only nation - it even is local. Any talented writer exists unavoidably the "voice of known soil, locality, which has right to his citizenship, to his opinion and voice in the public life as type, as color, as ebb, nuance". Reducing thus the skill to the almost unconscious creation, g. did not love even to use the word: influence, as something excessively abstract and little spontaneous, and introduced new term "movement". Together with Tyutchev, G. said that nature "not mold, not heartless face, that directly and directly in it there is a soul, in it there is freedom, in it there is love, in it there is language. Talents true are covered by these organic "movements" and consonant echo by them in their works. But once truly talented writer is a spontaneous repercussion of organic forces, he must without fail reflect any unknown another aspect of the nation organic life of this people, he must say "new word". Each writer, therefore, G. examined, first of all, with respect to that, he did say "new word". The most powerful "new word" in the newest Russian literature said Ostrovsky; he opened the new, unknown peace, to which he related by no means negatively, but with the deep love. Full value G. - in the beauty of his own spiritual personality, in the deeply sincere tendency toward the limitless bright ideal. Stronger than all confused and misty reasonings G. acts the charm of his moral essence, which is truly "organic" penetration by the best beginnings of high and elevated. Sr. on it "epoch" (1864 № 8 and 1865 № 2).
Нет, не рожден я биться лбом,
Ни терпеливо ждать в передней,
Ни есть за княжеским столом,
Ни с умиленьем слушать бредни.
Нет, не рожден я быть рабом,
Мне даже в церкви за обедней
Бывает скверно, каюсь в том,
Прослушать августейший дом.
И то, что чувствовал Марат,
Порой способен понимать я,
И будь сам бог аристократ,
Ему б я гордо пел проклятья...
Но на кресте распятый бог
Был сын толпы и демагог.