ALEXANDER SERGJEWITSCH PUSHKIN was born at Moscow, May 26, 1799. His first poetical influence came from his nurse who taught him Russian tales, legends and proverbs, and to whom, with loving recognition, he was grateful to the end of his life. His grandmother and this nurse taught him to read and write. In his seventh year he began the study of foreign languages; German, French,—which was as his mother tongue to him,—and mathematics, which he hated. At nine the passion of reading possessed him and he devoured his father's library, which included the French erotics, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopedists. His own first poetical work was indeed written in French. In 1811 he was sent to the school then just opened, at Tzarskoe Selo near Petersburg. Here, however, he learned little, the students being more interested in drinking bouts and platonic relations with barmaids and actresses; in spite of which the art of poetry was worshiped and Pushkin with others among his friends published a journal in manuscript that circulated their own contributions. He was later graduated from the Alexandrovsky Lyceum, the highest and most splendid civil school of that time, and entered the department of Foreign Affairs. Although he retained his entire sympathy with the poetic brotherhood, he now frequented the salons of the titled aristocracy and gave himself up to the vortex of luxurious society. Because of his political satires and too free opposition to the government, he was sent away from Petersburg in 1820, and attached to the Governor of the South Russian Colonies. Here he fell ill and went to the Caucas for recovery. It was in the Crimea that he learned to know and wonder over Byron. He remained three years in Kischinew,—in the service chiefly of wine, women and cards. In 1823 he went to Odessa as attaché of the General Governor Count Woronzow, whom he pursued with biting epigram,—until in 1824 the poet of "Russlan and Ludimilla" was removed from the service and banished to his mother's estates by order of the Tsar Alexander I.
These two years of unwilling retirement worked mightily upon the soul of Pushkin so filled with storm and stress. He struck off the chains of Byron and steeped himself in Shakespeare; writing at this period his drama of Boris Godunow. Nicholas First amnestied the poet and recalled him to Moscow, instituting himself censor of all future work; likewise placing Pushkin under the all-powerful Chief of Police Count Benkendorff, from whom Lermontoff later had also so much to suffer. In 1829 Pushkin went to the Caucas and with the Russian army to Erzum. In 1830 he inherited from his father the management of But Boldino, where he finished "Onegin," and three other dramas. In 1831 he was married at Moscow to Natalie Nikolajewa Gontsharowa, whose beauty had for three years held him in her toils. In the same year he was appointed to the foreign office again. In 1833 the poem was published that won him his fatal commission. Pushkin fell, as did Lermontoff later, a victim of the envy and hatred of high society. At this time many responsible positions were held in Russia by Frenchmen who had fled the terrors of the revolution. Such a French émigré was D'Anthes, who pursued the wife of Pushkin with his compromising attentions, until at a ball the poet was almost forced to challenge him. The pistol duel, that Count Benkendorff with cunning foresight did nothing to prevent, took place June 27, 1837. In two days the poet was free from his tormentors forever. He was buried in the Swatjatorgorische cloister and statues have been erected to his honor at Petersburg, Moscow and many other cities throughout Russia. His service to Russian literature can only be compared with that of Dante for Italy,—since there was practically no Russian poetry before Pushkin and he may be said to have created the Russian language as it is spoken to-day.
MICHAIL JURJEWITSCH LERMONTOFF was born October 14, 1814, at Moscow. From his father he inherited the love of brilliant society, from his mother the love of music and an unusually sensitive temperament. When he was but two and a half years old his mother died and he became the idol of his grandmother, by whom he was spoiled, until the wilfulness of youth became the arrogance and domineering quality so distinguishing his maturity. Being a delicate child, his grandmother took him at the age of ten to the Caucas,—which he deeply loved ever after. In 1827 he was placed in the Adelige Pension at Moscow, having been previously much influenced by a German nurse who inspired him with a love of German legend and poetry, and also by his tutor, an officer in the Napoleonic guard, who had taught him French. Up to 1831 he was under the German unfluence [Transcriber's note: sic] in literature, but then he came under the influence of Byron, and from this time he was never free of the impression of the poet so congenial to his own spirit and nature. In 1830 he was matriculated by the Moscow University as a student of moral and political science. In 1832 he went to what is now the Nicolai Military school in Petersburg, where he wrote his censurable and erotic poems that were passed about by thousands and won an immense popularity with the jeunesse doré of the time, but which were regarded as discreditable by the more serious and thoughtful society. In November, 1832, he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Life Guard Hussar regiment, and the young poet now plunged into the vortex of society life as Pushkin had before him. In 1836 appeared his "Song of the Tsar Ivan Wassiljewitsch,"—a truly classical achievement in the record of literature. In 1837 came the poem on the death of Pushkin, that stirred the aristocratic world and caused his banishment to the Caucas by the Emperor Nicholas I. In April of the year 1840 he was again banished to the Caucas for his duel with the son of the historian de Barante, where he distinguished himself by his valor in conflict with the Tscherkes. In February of 1841 we find the poet again at Petersburg, where the second edition of his masterpiece, "A Hero of Our Own Time," was just appearing. Yet toward the end of April again he was obliged to leave,— this time through the influence and hatred of the Countess Benkendorff. For the third time he went to the Caucas in exile. Here in Petigorsk he was forced into close relation with one Major Nikolai Solomonowitsch Martynow,—whom he did not spare from his well deserved scorn. Aroused by the local society that pursued the poet with hatred and envy, Martynow challenged him at a ball. The seconds, as also the entire city, expected a harmless outcome only, especially as Lermontoff, as was known to his adversary, had declared he should shoot in the air. He held his hand high with the pistol stretched aloft; Martynow approached, aimed, fired, and silently the poet fell dead. Thus his own lament for Pushkin came to be worthily written for himself—
"The murderer contemptuous gazingDid steadfastly his weapon aim—" etc., etc.
At the foot of the Machook mountains, July 27, 1841, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, the poet died. After a year the body was claimed by his grandmother, who lived at this time in the Pensa district, and his remains were removed to be fitly honored in the family village of Tarchany. In connection with the tragedy, it is pitiful to remember that his grandmother wept herself blind over the death of the poet.
COUNT ALEXIS CONSTANTINOWITSCH TOLSTOY was born at Petersburg on the 6th of September, 1817. At the age of six weeks he was taken away from the city to Little-Russia, by his mother and maternal uncle, who was distinguished in Russian literature under the pseudonym of Anton Perowskij. By this uncle he was brought up, enjoying a singularly happy and unclouded childhood. Being an only child he played much alone, living in his dreams and imagination and early developing a love for poetry. At the age of eight or nine years he was taken by his parents to Petersburg where he was presented to the heir to the throne, and allowed to play with his children. The good will shown him at that time he never lost throughout his entire life. The year following he was taken to Germany, and while in Weimar was permitted to visit Goethe, which made a lasting impression upon him. Up to the age of seventeen when he took his examinations for the University at Moscow, he lived both in Russia and abroad. After the death of his uncle, who made him his heir, he became attached, by the wish of his mother, to the Russian Mission at Frankfort. Later he returned to enter the Second Division of the Chancellery of His Majesty. At the time of the coronation of Alexander Second at Moscow, he was appointed to become His Majesty's aide de camp; an honor he declined, not caring for a military career. He was afterward made Chief Master of the Royal Hunt, a position he held until the day of his death. From the age of sixteen he had always written poetry, but not until 1855 did he begin to publish his lyrics and epics in the journals. His passion for poetry was extended toward all other forms of art. At thirteen years of age he made his first journey through Italy,—to Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, and his soul grew large with enthusiasm for every manifestation of beauty, so that upon his return to Russia he was really homesick for Italy. He said himself that it was solely due to his passion for hunting that his poems were written in the major key,—while those of so many of his countrymen were written in the minor. Count Tolstoy died on the 28th of September, 1875, at his estates in the government of Tshernigow, where he lies buried.
His most important works were a romance, a dramatic poem, Don Juan,—and the dramatic trilogy, The Death of Ivan the Terrible, Tsar Fedor Ivanowitsch and Tsar Boris.
APOLLON NIKOLAJEWITSCH MAIKOW was born June 4, 1821, at Moscow. His father was a painter; his brothers had rendered important service to Russian literature in history and criticism. As a boy he was instructed in the literature of Russia by the afterward famous Gontscharow. At the age of fifteen he began to write verse. His original intention was to become a painter, but the weakness of his eyes and his increased devotion to poetry decided him otherwise.
He studied jurisprudence at the University of St. Petersburg for several years, and his final collection of poems was published in 1842, which was greeted with enthusiasm by the famous critic Belinsky. In the same year, using the gold he received from the Emperor Nicholas I, he went abroad. He spent nearly a year in Italy, heard lectures at the College de France and the Sorbonne during his stay in Paris, and spent some time in Prague. For a time he served in the Ministry of Finance and from 1852 in the Foreign Censorship office at Petersburg; being President of that office at the time of his death which occurred in March, 1897.
NIKOLAI ALEXAJEWITSCH NEKRASSOW was born in November, 1821, in a village of a Polish province. His father married the daughter of a Polish magnate against the opposition of her parents. The marriage turned out unhappily. There were fourteen children and the poet always thought of his mother as a saint and his father as a tyrant,—which appears in several of his lyric poems. His childhood was spent in Greschenewo where the family had inherited an estate. He was sent to the government school or gymnasium, only until the fifth class. At sixteen he went to Petersburg to pursue a military career by the will of his father. His desire for knowledge drove him toward the University, but his father refused his every request, and during his student years he went hungry very often. He wrote vaudevilles for the Alexander theatre under an assumed name, and not until 1840 published his first volume of verse. In his fortieth year he brought out an anthology of Russian poets that was sufficiently successful to give him a living. In his fiftieth year his health seemed failing, and he went abroad to Italy, where the disaster seemed happily averted. The journal with which he had been connected being now suppressed, he became connected with another for two years. In December, 1877, he died, widely mourned and called "the singer of Russian folk song."
IVAN SSAWITSCH NIKITIN was born October 3, 1824, at Woronesh. Though his life was poor in external circumstances, it was all the richer within. His best biography is his own work, "From the Diary of a Seminarist." His life opened under rather auspicious influences, for his father owned a candle factory and was so prosperous that his business amounted yearly to a hundred thousand roubles. A shoemaker taught the precocious boy to read, and he was put to school at first in the local school, but this was exchanged in 1841 for the Seminary. Both here and at home he was, however, more cudgelled than educated, and his soul was threatened with suffocation in scholastic confusion. Only one consolation was always his; literature and poetry. While here the first great misfortune befell. His father's business failed, the house was turned into an inn and Ivan, instead of attending the University, as he had expected, was obliged to sell candles, not only in his father's shop, but as that was soon taken from him, even in the market place. After a few months his mother died and his father sacrificed his last remaining possessions for drink. He insulted and even attacked his son, bidding him leave his house, and the poor boy was compelled to render the most menial service to all. For ten long years this condition lasted, yet Ivan remained a poet!
In 1853 at the opening of the Crimean war, his patriotic hymn, "To Russia," appeared in the WoronisherTimes. This was received with applause and a circle of intelligent men gathered about him who were friendly and helpful in their disposition toward him. In 1856 Count Alexis Tolstoy, the great poet, prepared a volume of his poems for publication and the imperial family sent him costly gifts. His condition became improved and by 1859 he had amassed a capital of two thousand roubles, with which he opened a book-shop, hoping to enlighten the darkness of his country. To this ideal he gave all his strength and his money. In 1860 Nikitin went to Petersburg and Moscow to establish connections with the leading publishing houses; from which no small literary acquaintance arose. In the Spring of 1861 he suffered from a throat trouble which developed into bronchial tuberculosis of which he died on October 16, 1861. His trials with his father and those caused by his father's extreme intemperance were considered to have greatly hastened his lamented death.
CONSTANTINE MICHAILOWITSCH FOFANOW was born at Petersburg, May 30, 1862. He is not a highly educated man, and is now living, after a series of misfortunes, happily surmounted, at Gatschina.
SEMIJON JAKOLOWITSCH NADSON was born at Petersburg, December 26, 1862. On his father's side he was of Hebrew extraction. His grandfather had formerly embraced the orthodox faith, and his father, from whom he inherited his musical talent, died in an asylum, in the extreme youth of the poet. His mother, after contracting a second marriage, which ended unhappily, died at the age of thirty-one, of consumption. The boy learned to read and write at the age of four, from an old servant. At nine he had read widely. In 1875 he suffered from religious doubts, and even lost his faith in humanity, but his violin and Nature were still of unfailing support even in this crisis. Before her death his mother had placed him in the second Cadet Corps as a "pensionnaire." At first he did well, but soon he began to neglect his school work for poetry. A poem of his soon appeared in print, and that same year he fell in love with a girl of sixteen who died with rapid consumption; the M.D.B. of his poems. Smitten by this blow, he left the school and went to the Pawlonische Military School. Here he contracted a lung trouble and was sent to the Caucas. He remained there a year, but was always haunted by thought of the military career before him, for which he was morally and physically unfit. His dear dream of the University could not be realized, and on his return he went again to the military school for two years of camp life and maneuvres. In September, 1882, he was made second lieutenant of a Caspian regiment and stationed at Kronstadt. Already the young poet was making himself known through the journals, and in 1884 he left off his hated military service. For a short time he was connected withDie Woche, but already signs of tuberculosis had appeared and he found that a journey abroad was indispensable. On the funds raised by influential friends, and the prize awarded him by the Russian Literary Society, he was enabled to go abroad this same year, accompanied by a friend of his mother. He went to Wiesbaden, Nice, Mentonne, Berne, was operated upon three times for the trouble in his foot, but to no avail. His only desire became to return to his native land to die. In the summer of 1885, he went back to Kiew, where for a time he seemed to improve and was able to write some criticisms for the journals. When his left lung gave out, he moved to Yalta in the Crimea. Here he received the glad news that the Academy had given him the Pushkin award of five hundred roubles.
In November he bequeathed all he had written to the literary fund; whose Nadson capital now amounts to more than two hundred thousand roubles from the sale of his works. He died in January, 1889. His body was brought to Petersburg and interred with public honors. His grave, which is near other celebrated Russian writers, is adorned by a bust from the hand of the famous sculptor Antokolsky. His poetry enjoys a popularity beyond that of any one poet in Russian, and has been carried to the eighteenth edition of one hundred and twenty thousand volumes each.
Sketches of the lives of the poets here represented by a single poem are omitted as unnecessary to enjoyment of their work.