Alexander Ivanovich Odojewski

Odojewski on a Soviet postage stamp (1952)

Alexander Odoevsky ( Russian Александр Иванович Одоевский , scientific. Transliteration Aleksandr Ivanovich Odoevskij ; November * 26 ^{. Jul} / 8. December  1802 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ; † August 15 ^jul. / 27. August  1839 ^greg. In the fortress Psesuape , today in Sochi ) was a Russian poet .

Life

Odojewski came from an old Russian princely family , his father Ivan Sergejewitsch Odojewski was an officer. Alexander received a good home education and served in the Imperial Russian Army from 1821 . In addition, he has shown an interest in literature since his youth and was particularly influenced by contemporary socio-critical poets such as Vladimir Odojewski , Alexander Bestuschew , Kondrati Rylejew and Alexander Gribojedow .

In the spring of 1825 Odojewski joined, together with Bestuschew and Rylejew, the revolutionary circle of the secret society north , whose members, later known as the Decembrists , were preparing an armed uprising against the tsar . Odojewski belonged to the radical wing of this movement and took part in the Decembrist uprising in Saint Petersburg in December 1825, which, however, failed. Odojewski was arrested as one of the activists and was held in the Peter and Paul Fortress until the trial was over . He was sentenced to 15 years of forced labor in Siberia, which he served near Chita until 1833 . He was then pardoned and sent in exile to Jelan in the Irkutsk governorate and later to Ishim in the Tobolsk governorate .

The years in the Peter and Paul Fortress and in Siberia were the most productive for Odojewski as a poet. There he wrote soulful verses in which he combined influences of early Russian romanticism with the pathos of Decembrist poetry.

In 1837 Odojewski was allowed to return to his mother country from Siberia and was called up as a soldier for military service in the Caucasus . There he made the acquaintance of the poet Mikhail Lermontov (with whom he became friends, so that Lermontov later dedicated a poem to his memory after Odojewski's death) and the revolutionary publicist Nikolai Ogarjow . In 1839 Odojewski served on the eastern Black Sea coast . There he fell ill with malaria during an expedition and died a little later in the fortress of Psesuape.

Works (selection)

• Midnight (poem, 1826)
• Elegy (1829)
• Wassilko (Poem, 1830)

Web links

Commons : Alexander Odojewski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Poems by Alexander Odojewski (Russian)
• Biographies on hrono.ru (Russian)
• Entry about Odojewski in the Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg ( Memento of December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
• Alexander Odojewski in the anthology "Klub bis 40" about Russian poets who were not allowed to reach the age of forty (de)