Charismatic Russian monk, who became a powerful figure in
the court of Czar Nicholas II, before the Romanov dynasty
was swept aside by the Russian Revolution of 1917. The
son of a peasant, Rasputin joined a monastery as a novice
at the age of sixteen. As the Orthodox Church established
hegemony in Russia, various dissenting sect groups
emerged, among them the Khlysty. The Khlysty were
supposedly founded in the seventeenth century by Daniel
Filippov. They deviated from Orthodoxy in numerous ways.
Several different splinter groups developed through the
nineteenth century and by the beginning of the twentieth
century the Khlysty numbered approximately 65,000 people.
Rasputin came into early contact with the Khlysty, though
it is unclear just how dedicated a member he had been.
Rasputin married around 1890, but his first son died when
only six months old. The tragedy sent Rasputin to a
strange hermit named Makary, and subsequently Rasputin
became absorbed in scriptures, prayer, and meditation.
One day he saw an image of the Virgin in the sky, and
Makary told him, "God has chosen you for a great
achievement. In Order to strengthen your spiritual power,
you should go and pray to the Virgin in the convent of
Afon."
The convent was at Mount Athos, in Greece, two thousand
miles away, but in 1891, Rasputin made the pilgrimage on
foot. Later he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
traveling across Turkey. For the next few years he became
a wandering staretz (lay priest). He was widely believed
to possess occult power, which made him both loved and
feared. He manifested gifts of healing and prophecy. In
1903, he traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met
influential churchmen, including the monk Illiodor, who
later became a hateful rival. Rasputin's reputation as a
prophet and miracle worker spread widely, and he was
sought by rich and poor.
In those days, Russian court life and high society were
still strongly attracted to the marvels of Spiritualism,
which had been introduced in the 1860s by Alexander N.
Aksakof, and any wonder worker was in great demand. Soon
Rasputin came to the attention of the czar of Russia to
whom he became an indispensable adviser and healer to the
royal family.
Surrounded by the madhouse of tyranny, secret police,
bomb plots, crippling wars, and the ruthless suppression
of liberty of the Romanov empire, Rasputin, self-absorbed
in his own sense of destiny, towered above the
sycophants, bureaucrats, and plotters. He treated the
czar and czarina with complete familiarity, and they
welcomed Rasputin because of the healing powers he
supposedly possessed; he seemed to be able to treat the
couple's only son, Alexis, who was a hemophiliac. In
1911, tiring of court life, he undertook another
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and during his absence his
enemies intrigued against him. In the fall of 1915, when
the czar left to take command of the Russian army,
Rasputin took on more power as the czarina's chief aide.
Rasputin forced many of the cabinet ministers to resign,
and he replaced them with his cronies. His enemies,
headed by Prince Yussupov, felt he had taken on too much
political power and planned his murder.
The day before Rasputin was killed, Czar Nicholas
requested his blessing and with curious presence,
Rasputin said, "This time it is for you to bless me."
Yussupov invited Rasputin to his palace and persuaded him
to eat poisoned food and drink poisoned wine. The poison
was ineffectual. Thereupon the treacherous Yussupov sang
gypsy songs and played the guitar before leaving the room
and returning with a loaded revolver, shooting his victim
in the back. Other conspirators rushed in clumsily,
accidentally switching off the room light. When the light
was switched on again, Rasputin appeared dead, but was
still alive. Another conspirator shot Rasputin again; the
body was dragged from the house and battered with a steel
press. But Rasputin was still alive when he was pushed
through a hole in the ice on the River Neva. And although
his wrists had been bound, he had still managed to free
his right hand and make the sign of the cross before
drowning. He died December 31, 1916.
Copyright: Biography Resource Center
In the cellars of St. Petersburg's Yusupov Palace,
visitors view a recreation of the 1916 murder that
shocked the world. It involved the young Prince Felix
Yusupov, and the Russian peasant and the mystic Grigoriy
Rasputin, known as the "evil genius of Russia" for his
notorious influence on Empress Alexandria, wife of Czar
Nicholas II. Yusupov lured Rasputin to his palace on the
pretext of a party, served him a meal laced with poison
and then shot him. Badly wounded, Rasputin fled the
palace, was recaptured by other conspirators, shot,
beaten, and thrown into the river. His corpse was found
three days later, clinging to a bridge. He had finally
died by drowning.
Peter I
Born: May 30 (June 9), 1672, Moscow. Died: January 28
(February 8), 1725, St. Petersburg.
Crowned tzar of Russia on April 27, 1682; became Emperor
of Russia on October 22, 1721.
Peter was a grandson of Tzar Michael Romanov (who was
chosen to be a Tzar in 1613). In 1682, at the age of 10,
Peter was proclaimed Tzar, but due to a power struggle
between different political forces he had to rule
together with his brother Ivan under the patronage of his
sister Sofia. In 1689, after the failure of a coup
d'etat, Sofia was overthrown and exiled to a convent.
When tzar Ivan died in 1696, Peter remained monarch and
engineered a series of reforms that were to put Russia
among the major European powers. Peter opened Russia to
the West. He invited the best European engineers,
shipbuilders, architects, craftsmen and merchants to come
to Russia. Hundreds of Russians were sent to Europe to
get the best education and learn different arts and
crafts.
One of the Peter's main goals was to regain access to the
Baltic Sea and Baltic trade. In 1700 he started the
Northern War with Sweden, which lasted for 21 years. In
the course of the war St. Petersburg was founded (1703)
in the Neva River delta. At the end of the war Russia was
victorious and conquered the vast lands on the Baltic
coast. Russia gained access to European trade and St.
Petersburg became her major sea port.
In 1712 Peter the Great moved the Russian capital to St.
Petersburg and continued paying special attention to the
swift construction of the city - his European "paradise".
When the Northern War ended in 1721 Russia was declared
an Empire and Peter the Great proclaimed himself its
Emperor. Meanwhile, Peter continued his political and
economic reforms. He reorganized the government:
established the Senat as the highest government
institution and 10 semi-ministries "kollegii". Peter
introduced a new poll tax, which brought him funding for
an active foreign policy and for boosting national
manufacturing and trade. The "tzar-reformer" was first to
organize a Russian regular army and build the Russian
navy (he was also an experienced shipbuilder). Peter the
Great was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral and the
people still bring flowers to his tomb.
Peter's personality has raised many questions for almost
three centuries. He was a big strong man (6' 8'' inches -
2.04 meters) who unlike previous Russian monarchs was not
afraid of physical labor. He was an experienced army
officer and navy admiral, a skilful shipbuilder and an
amazingly energetic personality. It has to be said that
Peter was also very cruel. Several coup attempts against
him ended with mass executions. He personally
interrogated his own son Alexei, suspected of plotting
against him (Alexei was the first inmate of a high
security political jail in the Peter and Paul fortress).
Nevertheless, the scale of Peter's personality and
massive reforms have inspired generations of historians,
writers and ordinary people.
There are many monuments to Peter the Great in St.
Petersburg. Among the most prominent are the "Bronze
Horseman" and another equestrian monument in front of the
Mikhailovsky Castle.
Alexander Menshikov
Alexander Menshikov (Alexashka) became the first
governor of the city. He started life
as baker’s helper boy. He was well dressed and
was well mannered. More importantly he
was the only person who could stop Czar Peter in
rage. They were childhood friends. Peter
ordered Menshikov to marry Peter’s sister. In
future Alexashka became an outstanding
organizer, political leader, profiteer and thief.
Czar forgave him everything because of
his unquestionable loyalty. Only in Russia such
relationship could exist. Only Eastern man
can tolerate Menshikov and gain from such a
relationship. Menshikov was more gifted than
Peter in everything accepts physical strength. While
Alexashka was making money left and
right on state contracts Peter was only receiving a
salary of an admiral.
Menshikov understood perfectly the principles on which
Peter's reforms were conducted, and was the right hand of
the tsar in all his gigantic undertakings. But he abused
his omnipotent position, and his depredations frequently,
brought him to the verge of ruin. Every time the tsar
returned to Russia he received fresh accusations of
peculation against " his Serene Highness." Peter's first
serious outburst of indignation (March 1711) was due to
the prince's looting in Poland. On his return to Russia
in 1712, Peter discovered that Menshikov had winked at
wholesale corruptions in his own governor-generalship.
Peter warned him " for the last time " to change his
ways. Yet, in 1713, he was implicated in the famous
Solov'ey process, in the course of which it was
demonstrated that he had defrauded the government of
100,000 roubles.1 He only owed his life on this occasion
to a sudden illness. On his recovery Peter's fondness for
his friend overcame his sense of justice. In the last
year of Peter's reign fresh frauds and defalcations of
Menshikov came to light, and he was obliged to appeal for
protection to the empress Catherine. It was chiefly
through the efforts of Menshikov and his colleague
Tolstoi that, on the death of Peter, in 1725, Catherine
was raised to the throne. Menshikov was committed to the
Petrine system, and he recognized that, if that system
were to continue, Catherine was, at that particular time,
the only possible candidate. Her name was a watchword for
the progressive faction. The placing of her on the throne
meant a final victory over ancient prejudices, a
vindication of the new ideas of progress. During her
short reign (February 172 5-May 1727), Menshikov was
practically absolute. On the whole he ruled well, his
difficult position serving as some restraint upon his
natural inclinations. He contrived to prolong his power
after Catherine's death by means of a forged will and a
coup d'etat. While his colleague Tolstoi would have
raised Elizabeth Petrovna to the throne, Menshikov set up
the youthful Peter II., son of the tsarevich Alexius,
with himself as dictator during the prince's minority. He
now aimed at -establishing himself definitely by marrying
his daughter Mary to Peter II. But the old nobility,
represented by the Dolgorukis and the Golitsuins, united
to overthrow him, and he was deprived of all his
dignities and offices and expelled from the capital
(Sept. 9, 1727). Subsequently he was deprived of his
enormous wealth, and he and his whole family were
banished to Berezov in Siberia, where he died on the i2th
of November 1729.
After Menshikov's fall from grace, all his
property was confiscated by the state.
Mikhail Lomonosov
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711-1765), Russian writer
and polymath, who made important contributions to both
literature, education and science.
Lomonosov was born on November 19, 1711, in the village
of Denisovka (the name of which was afterwards changed in
honour of the poet), situated on an island not far from
Kholmo-gorl, in the government of Arkhangelsk. His
father, a fisherman, took the boy when he was ten years
of age to assist him in his calling; but the his
eagerness for knowledge was unbounded. The few books
accessible to him he almost learned by heart; and, seeing
that there was no chance of pursuing education at home,
he resolved to go to Moscow. An opportunity occurred when
he was seventeen, and by the intervention of friends he
obtained admission into the Zaikonospasski school. There
his progress was very rapid, especially in Latin, and in
1734 he was sent from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. There
again his proficiency, especially in physical science,
was marked, and he was one of the young Russians chosen
to complete their education in foreign countries. He
accordingly commenced the study of metallurgy at Marburg,
Germany; he also began to write poetry, imitating German
authors, among whom he is said to have especially admired
Gunther. His Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks
was composed in 1739, and attracted a great deal of
attention at St. Petersburg. During his residence in
Germany, Lomonosov married a native of that country, and
found it difficult to maintain his increasing family on
the scanty allowance granted to him by the St. Petersburg
Academy, which, moreover, was irregularly sent. His
circumstances became embarrassed, and he resolved to
leave the country secretly and to return home. On his
arrival in Russia he rapidly rose to distinction, and was
made professor of chemistry in the University of St.
Petersburg; where he ultimately became rector. Eager to
improve Russian education, Lomonosov was engaged in
founding the Moscow State University (later named after
him) in 1755. In 1764 Lomonosov was appointed to the
position of a secretary of state.
As a scientist Lomonosov rejected the phlogiston theory
of matter commonly accepted at the time, and anticipated
the kinetic theory of gases. He regarded heat as a form
of motion, suggested the wave theory of light, and stated
the idea of conservation of matter. Lomonosov was the
first person to record the freezing of mercury, and to
observe the atmosphere of Venus during a solar transit.
In 1755 he wrote a grammar that reformed the Russian
literary language by combining Old Church Slavonic with
the vulgar tongue. He published the first history of
Russia in 1760. Most of his accomplishments, however,
were unknown outside Russia until long after his death.
He died in St. Petersburg on April 15, 1765.
Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin was born in Moscow on May
26, 1799 (Old Style). In 1811 he was selected to be
among the thirty students in the first class at the
Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo .
He attended the Lyceum from 1811 to 1817 and received the
best education available in Russia at the time. He soon
not only became the unofficial laureate of the Lyceum,
but found a wider audience and recognition. He was
first published in the journal The Messenger of
Europe in 1814. In 1815 his poem "Recollections
in Tsarskoe Selo" met the approval of Derzhavin, a great
eighteenth-century poet, at a public examination in the
Lyceum.
After graduating from the Lyceum, he was given a sinecure
in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs in
Petersburg. The next
three years he spent mainly in carefree, light-hearted
pursiut of pleasure. He was warmly received in literary
circles; in circles of Guard-style lovers of wine, women,
and song; and in groups where political liberals debated
reforms and constitutions. Between 1817 and 1820 he
reflected liberal views in "revolutionary" poems, his ode
"Freedom," "The Village,"
and a number of poems on Aleksandr I and his minister
Arakcheev. At the same time he was working on his first
large-scale work,
Ruslan and
Liudmila.
In April 1820, his political poems led to an
interrogation by the Petersburg governor-general and then
to exile to South Russia, under the guise of an
administrative transfer in the service. Pushkin left
Petersburg for Ekaterinoslave on May 6, 1820. Soon after
his arrival there he traveled around the Caucasus and the
Crimea with the family of General Raevsky. During almost
three years in Kishinev, Pushkin wrote his first Byronic
verse tales, "The Prisoner of
the Caucasus" (1820-1821), "The Bandit Brothers (1821-
1822), and "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" (1821-1823). He
also wrote "Gavriiliada" (1821), a light approach to the
Annunciation, and he started his novel in verse,
Eugene Onegin (1823-1831).
With the aid of influential friends, he was transferred
in July 1823 to Odessa, where he engaged in
theatre going, social outings, and love affairs with two
married women. His literary creativeness also continued,
as he completed "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" and the
first chapter of Eugene Onegin, and began
"The Gypsies." After postal officials intercepted a
letter in which he wrote a thinly-veiled support of
atheism, Pushkin was exiled to his mother's estate of
Mikhaylovskoe in north Russia.
The next two years, from August 1824 to August 1826 he
spent at Mikhaylovskoe in exile and under surveillance.
However unpleasant Pushkin my have found his virtual
imprisonment in the village, he continued his literary
productiveness there. During 1824 and 1825 at
Mikhaylovskoe he finished "The Gypsies," wrote
Boris Godunov , "Graf Nulin" and the second
chapter of Eugene Onegin.
When the Decembrist Uprising took place in
Petersburg on December 14,
1825, Pushkin, still in Makhaylovskoe, was not a
participant. But he soon learned that he was implicated,
for all the Decembrists had copies of his early political
poems. He destroyed his papers that might be dangerous
for himself or others. In late spring of 1826, he sent
the Tsar a petition that he be released from exile. After
an investigation that showed Pushkin had been behaving
himself, he was summoned to leave immediately for an
audience with Nicholas I. On September 8, still grimy
from the road, he was taken in to see Nicholas. At the
end of the interview, Pushkin was jubliant that he was
now released from exile and that Nicholas I had
undertaken to be the personal censor of his works.
Pushkin thought that he would be free to travel as he
wished, that he could freely participate in the
publication of journals, and that he would be totally
free of censorship, except in cases which he himself
might consider questionable and wish to refer to his
royal censor. He soon found out otherwise. Count
Benkendorf, Chief of Gendarmes, let Pushkin know that
without advance permission he was not to make any trip,
participate in any journal, or publish -- or even read in
literary circles -- any work. He gradually discovered
that he had to account for every word and action, like a
naughty child or a parolee. Several times he was
questioned by the police about poems he had written.
The youthful Pushkin had been a light-hearted scoffer at
the state of matrimony, but freed from exile, he spent
the years from 1826 to his marriage in 1831 largely in
search of a wife and in preparing to settle down. He
sought no less than the most beautiful woman in Russia
for his bride. In 1829 he found her in Natalia
Goncharova, and presented a formal proposal in April of
that year. She finally agreed to marry him on the
condition that his ambiguous situation with the
government be clarified, which it was. As a kind of
wedding present, Pushkin was given permission to publish
Boris Godunov -- after four years of waiting
for authorization -- under his "own responsibility." He
was formally betrothed on May 6, 1830.
Financial arrangements in connection with his father's
wedding gift to him of half the estate of Kistenevo
necessitated a visit to the neightboring estate of
Boldino, in east-central Russia. When Pushkin arrived
there in September 1830, he expected to remain only a few
days; however, for three whole months he was held in
quarantine by an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. These
three months in Boldino turned out to be literarily the
most productive of his life. During the last months of
his exile at Mikhaylovskoe, he had completed Chapters V
and VI of Eugene Onegin, but in the four
subsequent years he had written, of major works, only
"Poltava"(1828), his unfinished novel The
Blackamoor of Peter the Great (1827) and Chapter
VII of Eugene Onegin (1827-1828). During
the autumn at Boldino, Pushkin wrote the five short
stories of The Tales of Belkin; the verse
tale "The Little House in Kolomna;" his little tragedies,
"The Avaricious Knight," "Mozart and Salieri;" "The Stone Guest;" and
"
Feast in the Time of the Plague;" "The Tale of
the Priest and His Workman Balda," the first of his fairy
tales in verse; the last chapter of Eugene
Onegin; and "The Devils," among other lyrics.
Pushkin was married to Natalia Goncharova on February 18,
1831, in Moscow. In May, after a honeymoon made
disagreeable by "Moscow aunties" and in-laws, the
Pushkins moved to
Tsarskoe Selo, in order to live
near the capital, but inexpensively and in "inspirational
solitude and in the circle of sweet recollections."
These expectations were defeated when the cholera
epidemic in Petersburg caused the Tsar and the court to
take refuge in July in Tsarskoe Selo. In October 1831
the Pushkins moved to an
apartment in Petersburg, where they
lived for the remainder of his life. He and his wife
became henceforth inextricably involved with favors from
the Tsar and with court society. Mme. Pushkina's beauty
immediately made a sensation in society, and her admirers
included the Tsar himself. On December 30, 1833,
Nicholas I made Pushkin a Kammerjunker, an intermediate
court rank usually granted at the time to youths of high
aristocratic families. Pushkin was deeply offended, all
the more because he was convinced that it was conferred,
not for any quality of his own, but only to make it
proper for the beautiful Mme. Pushkina to attend court
balls. Dancing at one of these balls was followed in
March 1834 by her having a miscarriage. While she was
convalescing in the provinces, Pushkin spoke openly in
letters to her of his indignation and humiliation. The
letters were intercepted and sent to the police and to
the Tsar. When Pushkin discovered this, in fury he
submitted his resignation from the service on June 25,
1834. However, he had reason to fear the worst from the
Tsar's displeasure at this action, and he felt obliged to
retract his resignation.
Pushkin could ill afford the expense of gowns for Mme.
Pushkina for court balls or the time required for
performing court duties. His woes further increased when
her two unmarried sisters came in autumn 1834 to live
henceforth with them. In addition, in the spring of 1834
he had taken over the management of his improvident
father's estate and had undertaken to settle the debts of
his heedless brother. The result was endless cares,
annoyances, and even outlays from his own pocket. He
came to be in such financial straits that he applied for
a leave of absence to retire to the country for three or
four years, or if that were refused, for a substatial sum
as loan to cover his most pressing debts and for the
permission to publish a journal. The leave of absence
was brusquely refused, but a loan of thirty thousand
rubles was, after some trouble, negotiated; permission to
publish, beginning in 1836, a quarterly literary journal,
The Contemporary, was finally granted as
well. The journal was not a financial success, and it
involved him in endless editoral and financial cares and
in difficulties with the censors, for it gave importantly
placed enemies among them the opportunity to pay him off.
Short visits to the country in 1834 and 1835 resulted in
the completion of only one major work, "The Tale of the
Golden Cockerel"(1834), and during 1836 he only completed
his novel on Pugachev, The Captain's
Daughter, and a number of his finest lyrics.
Meanwhile, Mme. Pushkina loved the attention which her
beauty attracted in the highest society; she was fond of
"coquetting" and of being surrounded by admirers, who
included the Tsar himself. In 1834 Mme. Pushkina met a
young man who was not content with coquetry, a handsome
French royalist emigre in Russian service, who was
adopted by the Dutch ambassador, Heeckeren. Young
d'Anthes-Heeckeren
pursued Mme. Pushkina for two years, and finally so
openly and unabashedly that by autumn 1836, it was
becoming a scandal. On November 4, 1836 Pushkin received
several copies of a "certificate" nominating him
"Coadjutor of the International Order of Cuckolds."
Pushkin immediately challenged d'Anthes; at the same
time, he made desperate efforts to settle his
indebtedness to the Treasury. Pushkin twice allowed
postponements of the duel, and then retracted the
challenge when he learned "from public rumour" that
d'Anthes was "really" in love with Mme. Pushkina's
sister, Ekaterina Goncharova. On January 10, 1837, the
marriage took place, contrary to Pushkin's expectations.
Pushkin refused to attend the wedding or to receive the
couple in his home, but in society d'Anthes pursued Mme.
Pushkina even more openly. Then d'Anthes arranged a
meeting with her, by persuading her friend Idalia
Poletika to invite Mme. Pushkina for a visit; Mme.
Poletika left the two alone, but one of her children came
in, and Mme. Pushkina managed to get away. Upon hearing
of this meeting, Pushkin sent an insulting letter to old
Heeckeren, accusing him of being the author of the
"certificate" of November 4 and the "pander" of his
"bastard." A duel with
d'Anthes took place on January 27, 1837. D'Anthes
fired first, and Pushkin
was mortally wounded; after he fell, he summoned the
strength to fire his shot and to wound, slightly, his
adversary. Pushkin died two days later, on January
29.
As Pushkin lay dying, and after his death, except for a
few friends, court society sympathized with d'Anthes, but
thousands of people of all other social levels came to
Pushkin's apartment to express sympathy and to mourn.
The government obviously feared a political
demonstration. To prevent public display, the funeral
was shifted from St. Isaac's Cathedral to the small Royal
Stables Church, with admission by ticket only to members
of the court and diplomatic society. And then his body
was sent away, in secret and at midnight. He was buried
beside his mother at dawn on February 6, 1837 at Svyatye
Gory Monastery, near Mikhaylovskoe.
One of Russia's greatest writers, Fyodor Dostoevsky was
born in 1821 in Moscow but spent most of his adult life
in St-Petersburg , where many of his novels and short
stories are set. He graduated from the Guards Corps of
Engineers in St.Petersburg. A defining moment in his life
occurred in 1849 when he was arrested and charged with
revolutionary conspiracy. After eight month's of solitary
confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress Dostoevsky and
21 other "conspirators" from the socialist Petrashevsky
Circle were subjected to a macabre mock execution before
being to hard labour in Siberia until 1859.The sinister
experience is recalled in his novel The Idiot(1868). The
novelist Dostoevsky lived for many years among the slum
of Sennaya Ploschad which provided the setting for his
greatest work, Crime and Punishment.
In his last years gambling and debts confined him to a
fairly modest lifestyle in the five-roomed apartment.
Although Dostoevsky's public persona was dour and
humourless, he was a devoted and affectionate husband and
father. He used to read aloud fairy tales to his
children.
He died in 1765.
SERGEY ESENIN (1895-1925)
Esenin was born on 21 September in Konstantinovo village
of Ryazan province. He attended the village school from
1904 to 1909, and the Spas-Klepiki church boarding school
from 1909 to 1912. During this period he started to write
poetry seriously. At the age of seventeen he moved to
Moscow and worked for a year in Sytin's printing house.
In Moscow Esenin joined a group of peasant and
proletarian poets, the "Surikov" circle. Occasionally he
attended lectures at Shaniavskii University as external
student and studied there 1,5 years. In 1913-15 he lived
with Anna Izriadnova; they had one son. In 1917 he
married Zinaida Raikh; they had one daughter and one son.
Esenin's first verse were published in the Moscow journal
Mirok in 1914. He moved to Petrograd in 1915 where he
began to achieve fame in the literary salons. There he
met Aleksandr Blok, Sergei Gorodetskii and the peasant
poet Nikolai Kliuev, with whom he formed a close
friendship. Esenin left work and devoted himself to
poetical activity. Many of his poems turn to the
traditions of Russian folklore.
Later in his autobiography Esenin wrote : "Belyi gave me
the meaning of form and Blok and Klyuev taught me
lyricism".
His first publications were accomplished in such
magazines as "Russkaya Mysl' (A Russian Thought"),
"Zhizn' dlya vsekh" (Life for Everyone), "Ezhemesyachnyi
Zhurnal" (Monthly Magazine). November 1915 was the date
of his first poetic book ("Radunitsa") issue.
In 1916-17 Esenin was in military service in Tsarskoe
Selo but deserted from the army after the 1917 February
Revolution. He returned to Moscow in 1918. Esenin hoped
that the Revolution would lead to a better life for the
peasantry, a new age, of which he crystallized his
visions in Inoniya (1918). Later, in 'The Stern October
Has Deceived Me', Esenin revealed his disappointment with
the Bolsheviks. By the 1920 Esenin realized that he was
"the last poet of the village". The long poetic drama
Pugachyov (1922) was influenced the spirit of the time
and glorified the 18th-century rebellious peasant leader.
Confessions of a Hooligan (1921) revealed another side of
Esenin's personality - provocative, vulgar, wounded,
anguished. 'The Black Man' is considered Esenin's most
ruthless analysis of his failures and alcoholic
hallucinations.
After divorce in 1921, Esenin married in 1922 the famous
American dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), they
separated but not divorced in 1924. He followed her on
tour to western Europe and the United States in 1922-23.
Isadora herself did not fascinate Esenin, but her fame.
When he watched her devouring cold roast mutton, Esenin
lost completely his own appetite. Their journey abroad
was a disaster for Esenin, who wished that his poetry
would be well-received. "Only abroad," wrote Esenin, "did
I understand how great are the merits of the Russian
Revolution which has saved the world from a horrible
spirit of philistinism." From America Esenin did not find
anything good but the fox-trot dance. In 1923 he returned
to Russia, suffering from depression and hallucinations.
During the journey Esenin became an alcoholic, and his
determination to end his life turned manic: he threw
himself in front of a local train, tried to jump from a
window of a 5 store building, and hurt himself with a
kitchen knife. In the cycle 'Liubov' khuligana' (1923) he
took distance to his earlier anarchism, and relied on the
healing power of love. Some of his most celebrated lyrics
- addressed to his family and village - belong to this
period. In these works Esenin's major theme was
hopelessness. He used straightforward language, without
the ornaments of his imaginist lyrics.
During his last years Esenin became increasingly
depressed and alcoholic. In 1922 he wrote: "It's
prostitutes I read my poems to, / Bandits I toast in
burning alcohol." His favorite caf was "Pegasus Stall",
the meeting place of Imaginist poets. Some of the verses
in Moskva kabatskaia (1924, Moscow of the taverns) were
written abroad, but most of the poems dealt with his
bohemian life in taverns, prostitutes, crooks, and other
social outcasts seeking consolation from alcohol and day
dreams. Its concluding poem, 'I will not weep, regret or
scold ...' has been praised as one of the greatest ever
written in Russian. In 1924 he wrote also poems about the
new society and revolution, and praised Lenin in Strana
Sovetskaia (1925). However, as a poet of the Revolution,
he never gained such fame as Maiakovskii, with whom he
also quarreled.
Esenin broke with the Imaginists in 1924, and traveled in
the Caucaus 1924-25. From this journey he produced the
collection Persidskie motivy (1925). In 1925 he married
Sof'ia Tolstaia, a granddaughter of Lev Tolstoy; the
marriage was unhappy. Esenin also had a son in 1924 from
a relationship with Nadezhda Vol'pin. He wrote poems
during the one hour before dinner, when he was still "a
human being", "I still feel that I remain the poet / Of
the timber cottages of yore," Esenin said in 1925.
In the late 1925 Esenin spent some time in a hospital for
a nervous breakdown. He had left his wife and went to
Leningrad, where he hanged himself in the Hotel
d'Angleterre, on December 28, 1925. Before his death,
Esenin slashed his wrists and wrote with his own blood
his farewell in 'Do svidan'ia, drug moi, do svidan'ia':
"In this life it is not new to die, / but neither it is
new to be alive." Esenin used blood because the ink
bottle in the room was dry. Communist authorities, who
had viewed with suspicion Esenin's poetry and
individualism - "hooliganism" - considered his work in
conflict with the doctrines of the Socialist realism, and
banned his books. Esenin was out of favor until after
World War II. From the 1960s his poems have been
reprinted in several collections.
Esenin is a dainty lyric, he can express all the nuances
of human being soul and mood very skillfully. The
"peasant" theme in his creative activity became the theme
of national fates, the character of village in his
interpretation became the character of Fatherland. Sergey
Esenin's works are the part of Russian poetry golden
fund.
Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky
Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840. Unlike
the families of some other famous composers, the
Tchaikovsky family members were not particularly
noteworthy, either for their abilities or for their
interest in music.Tcahaikovsky mother, Alexandra, was
Ilya Petrovich's second wife . He had married her when
she was 20 years old, after the death of his first wife .
It was Alexandra who was responsible for bringing music
into the life of Tchaikovsky family.
Tchaikovsky adored his mother all his life, he was
haunted by the memory of her large and beautiful hands.
Sadly for Tchaikovsky, Alexandra proved to be a rather
cold and distant woman . She was self-absorbed, concerned
about her position in society and not given to hugs and
kisses or other physical shows of affection to her
children. She hated life in the small town and wanted
only to return to Petersburg.
In 1843, inspired by her love of French culture,
Tchaikovsky's mother hired a governess to assist with the
children's education. Fanny Durback, a 22-year-old French
Protestant, was to become a major influence in the life
of the young composer. She recognized his sensitivity and
giftedness, calling him "unenfantdeverre" (child of glass
). Fanny recalled that as a child, Peter's clothes "were
always in disorder. Either he had stained them in his
absentmindedness, or buttons were missing, or his hair
was only half-brushed. " She exercised a wholesome and
calming influence on him, although she worried that the
obsession with music that he showed at such an early age
was unhealthy. She preferred that he read books or listen
to stories. Peter was a soft-hearted child. One day he
disappeared from home and nobody could find him. It
turned out he'd been going from door to door in town,
trying to find a home for the last kitten in a litter
born to a cat belonging to one of his father's serfs. It
was at this time too that his strong love for all
Russian things began to appear. When he was only three
years old, Tchaikovsky began to show a strong interest in
music. "I started to compose as soon as I knew what
music was, "he once said. In fact he did produce his
first composition when he was only four years old, with
some help from his two-year-old sister Alexandra (Sasha).
Their little song was called Our Mama in St.Petersburg.
And then one day Ilya Petrovich, Peter's father, brought
home an orchestrion. An orchestrion was a type of barrel
organ with a large number of pipes of various lengths and
sizes designed to represent the instruments of an
orchestra. The Tchaikovsky family's orchestrion could
play airs from Bellini, Donizetti. Weber, Rossini and
Mozart, in particular highlights from Mozart's great
opera Don Giovanni. Peter felt that he "owed his first
musical impressions to this instrument." He was
particularly fond of DonGiovanni. By the time he was six,
Peter had got into the habit of rushing from the
orchestrion to the piano and picking out the tunes he had
heard with increasing skill. Once when Peter's parents
entertained a Polish pianist who gave a concert for the
guests. Peter insisted on sitting at the piano, and
played from memory the two Chopin mazurkas the pianist
had performed. The Polish pianist complimented the
little boy, calling him a "promising musician." On
another occasion, Peter fled from the room, much to the
surprise of Fanny and his parents who thought Peter would
be pleased at having been allowed to stay up late. Two
hours later, when Fanny checked on him, she found him
sprawled on his bed, still fully dressed, weeping
hysterically, "Oh, the music, the music!" he sobbed.
"Save me from it, Fanny, save me! It's here:in here!"- he
struck his forehead-"and it won't leave me in peace."
Music resonated in his head. Throughout the house, he
would drum his fingers on whatever surface was at hand,
reflecting the tunes that he "heard." On one occasion
when Fanny Durback complained about the noise he was
making, he drummed instead on a nearby windowpane so
animatedly that finally his hand crashed through the
glass and was badly cut. Peter's parents hired a piano
teacher for him, but soon he was beyond any thing she
could teach him. In the meantime, knowing his wife was
dissatisfied with life ,IlyaPetrovic resigned his
comfortable position and moved the family to Moscow
,having heard about a job there that would suit him.
However, the move proved to be disastrous. Once they
arrived ,IlyaPetrovich discovered that a former friend
had rushed to Moscow ahead of him and taken the job. The
family's entire fortune disappeared and they had to
economize .One of the first things to happen was the
dismissal of Fanny. She was spirited out of the house in
the middle of the night, without saying goodbye, so as
not to upset Peter. In November 1848, the family moved to
St.Petersburg. Peter and his older brother Nikolay were
enrolled in the fashionable Schmelling School, which
Peter hated. The school was very hard on the boys.
Peter left home at 8 each morning, not returning until
after 5, and often staying up until after midnight to
finish his homework. Viewed as country bumpkins, the
brothers were bullied mercilessly by the other students.
Then he developed measles and was very ill for weeks.
Later Peter 10 year old was sent to a preparatory school
for entry into the School of Jurisprudence in
St.Petersburg.
In 1852 he passed his exams for the School of
Jurisprudence. And so following his graduation in 1855,
Peter became a clerk in the Ministry of
Justice. By 1861, Tchaikovsky turned his attention once
more to music. He enrolled in Russian Musical Society and
became a full-time student of music.
In 1865 Tchaikovsky graduated from the Conservatory and
went on to compose his world-famous operas, symphonies
and ballets. Among them are Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet,
Nutcracker Suite, 1812 Overture, Piano Concerto No. 1,
Pathetique Symphony, Fourth Symphony, Sixth Symphony,
Eugene Onegin.
He died shortly after completion of his Pathetique
Symphony in November 1893. Officially he was supposed to
have died of cholera, but it is commonly believed that he
committed suicide, due to pressure from Conservatory
colleagues wishing to avoid a scandal after Tchaikovsky's
alleged homosexual affair.
Статьи 