Krylov Ivan Andreevich

Krylov Ivan Andreevich

Main article: Writers and poets of Russia

Biography

Ivan Andreevich Krylov was born on February 13, 1769 in the family of a poor army captain. The field of death of his father, as the literary critic Vladislav Kenevich wrote in the article "Ivan Andreevich Krylov" (1904), "the poverty that visited his family forced the mother to determine her son for service. And so, 14-year-old Krylov, barely able to hold his pen in his hand, "instead of school goes to the magistrate with the rank of clerk. However, according to researchers of the fabulist's work, it was "the service and early need that brought him some everyday experience very early, or at least developed in him the ability to understand human properties and a complex network of social relations." Krylov did not have the opportunity to get a good classical education, but his father left him a chest of books, and his mother managed to instill a love of work and reading.

"He was not occupied by clerical work - his thoughts, according to a contemporary, were carried to the markets, to the square, where fistfights attracted crowds of spectators, and finally to the raft, where laundresses and water carriers gathered from all over the city. There, in these gatherings, at this raft, he spent whole hours, overheard conversations, jokes, sharpness<…>. Maybe then he already learned the beginning of that purely Russian speech that makes his fables available to all classes of the Russian people, "Kenevich notes.

As a result, the future classic, despite his insufficient education, entered the literary field very early: he was not yet twenty years old when he wrote his first theatrical plays. Then the young Krylov takes on operas. Then he tries himself in a tragic way, and finally moves on to comedy. He is also engaged in journalism and publishing.

In the late 1790s, Krylov met Prince Sergei Golitsyn and began to serve as his secretary and teacher for his children. "The embryos of all talents, all arts, were laid in this extraordinary man. Nature told him: choose any, and he began to use her rich gifts, a poet, a good musician, a mathematician became, "wrote memoirist Philip Vigel about Krylov years later, who studied with the sons of the prince. Ivan Andreevich taught the basics of Russian literature and foreign languages. According to Vigel, whose "Notes" are stored in the fund of the Presidential Library, the future famous fabulist "in this case proved to be a master. The lessons took place almost all in conversation; he knew how to arouse curiosity, loved questions and answered them as intelligibly, as clearly as he wrote his fables. He was not content with one Russian language, but mixed many moral teachings and explanations of various subjects from other sciences with his instructions. "

Vigel also gives a description of Krylov's appearance:... "in his actions and manners, in growth and adolescence, as well as in the syllable, there is something bearish: the same strength, the same calm gloom, with clumsiness, the same intelligence, intricacy and dexterity. No one will call him the best, our first poet; but, of course, he will remain for a long time the most famous, favorite of them. "

Here is how Ivan Turgenev described Krylov years later: "He had a majestic head, somewhat massive and heavy, beautiful gray hair, slightly droopy cheeks, a large, but correct and serious mouth, immobile eyes with semi-submerged eyelids, lazy, almost apathetic expression, through which a lively mind and humor shone. He hardly spoke, but listened - brilliantly, so to speak, for his silence was accompanied by something like an inner smile, as if, watching, he made many remarks to himself, which, however, were never going to tell the world. "

And yet he told... When at the end of 1805, Krylov... "brought to Moscow his first fables - a translation from Lafontaine, and [the famous fabulist] Dmitriyev told him:" finally you found your true path, "these prophetic words only expressed what was already undoubtedly in Krylov's mind. In any case, this was the goal to which his genius led, "says the biographical essay by the writer and translator Semyon Briliant" I. A. Krylov: his life and literary activity "(1891). By that time, Ivan Andreevich was already closer to forty years old, and his literary activity, by and large, was just beginning, real recognition was still ahead.

1809: Publication of the first 23 fables

Glory came to Krylov in the anniversary year for him in 1809, when 23 of his fables were first published as a separate edition. Since then, publications have followed one after another, the last, published during his lifetime, in 1843, consisted of 9 books, in which there were about 200 fables. The appearance of each new fable was an event - journalists extolled them, the audience learned by heart. New editions sold out. Krylov, with his characteristic humor, explained such an unheard-of demand for his books by the fact that they are given to children, and children, as you know, tear up books...

"But why were they given to children?" asks literary critic Kenevich. Gogol answers these questions: because in these fables the great poet and sage merged together; because in them spoke a mind related to the mind of our proverbs, because he knew how to tell the truth in them to everyone - smart and stupid, strong and weak, and a dignitary standing on top of a public staircase, and to the unknown worker, whom they look at with contempt, because each of them, like a hundred-eyed Argus, he looks at a person and forces him to turn his mental gaze inside himself. "

"He was brilliant," wrote historian Alexei Markevich, compiler of the collection "Wings and His Fables" (1895), a digital copy of which is stored in the Presidential Library fund, about Krylov. The author says that Ivan Andreevich's abilities were so great that when his friend, the writer Gnedich, who had been engaged in the Greek language all his life, began to complain about the difficulties of translating the Iliad, Krylov, already in his advanced years, beat him "about the bet, and despite some empty that in two years this language will know well. And for sure, Krylov almost did not leave the house all this time and studied the Greek language so much that he read all Greek writers freely. "

Ivan Andreevich was very unpretentious in everyday life. The only thing he was not indifferent to was delicious food. Markevich in his article called him a "big tidbit." Krylov looked at everything else through his fingers. He dressed rather carelessly, for almost thirty years, from 1812 to 1841, serving in the Imperial Public Library, lived in a state apartment, spending almost all his free time at home and reading what came to hand. To the reproaches of those around him that over time he began to write little, Krylov replied that he preferred to hear this, and not that it was long past time for him to stop writing. Markevich cites such a case that characterizes the fabulist. Krylov had a large picture in a heavy frame above the sofa, where he liked to lie. When she fell from one nail and hung sideways, they tried to explain to Krylov that this was dangerous and the picture had to be fixed. He replied that according to the calculation he made, the picture, finally cut off, would fall without hitting him on the sofa...

The famous sculptor Pyotr Klodt, the author of the monument to the fabulist installed in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg, presented Krylov as he often was in life: in a natural and calm pose, in the hands of a book. The pedestal is decorated with bronze images of people and animals - the heroes of his fables.

The essay "I. A. Krylov: His Life and Literary Activity" cites the words of Metropolitan Makarii, said by him at the opening of the monument to the fabulist: "He bequeathed love, boundless love for everything domestic, for our native word, for our native country and for all the beginnings of our people's life...."

Compositions

Libretto for operas