Gavriil Romanowitsch Derschawin

Gavriil Derschawin, painted by Vladimir Borowikowski , 1811

Gavrila Derzhavin ( Russian Гавриил Романович Державин ; born July 3 ^jul. / 14. July  1743 ^greg. In Kazan , † July 8 ^{. Jul} / 20th July  1816 ^{. Greg} in Chutynski Monastery in Veliky Novgorod ) was the most famous Russian Poet before Pushkin . Although his works are categorized as classical literature, his best verses are full of antitheses and contradictions reminiscent of John Donne and other metaphysical poets .

Life

Born and attended school in Kazan , he rose from a simple soldier to the highest officer of the state under Catherine the Great . He was governor of Olonez (1784) and Tambov (1785), personal secretary to the empress (1791), president of the University of Economics (1794) and minister of justice (1802). However, he resigned from all offices in 1803 and spent the rest of his life on his country estate in Swanka near Veliky Novgorod . Here he wrote his poems and verses. He was buried in the Chutynski monastery near Swanka. During the Soviet era he was reburied in the Novgorod Kremlin , only to be returned to his old tomb after the dissolution of the Soviet Union .

Derschawin is best known for his odes, which he dedicated to the empress and other members of the court. He paid no attention to the prevailing division into genres and often integrated elegiac , humorous and satirical elements. One example is his greatest ode, in which he describes how he looks for fleas in his wife's hair and compares his own poems with lemonade.

Unlike other classical poets, Derschawin found joy in carefully selected details such as B. the color of his wallpaper in his bedroom. He believed that French was a language of harmony while he thought Russian was a language full of conflict. Even though he preferred harmonic alliteration, he sometimes made conscious use of the effects of cacophony . His most famous works are:

• Ode to Felicia (1779)
• God (1784)
• The waterfall (1794)
• The bullfinch (1800)

In old age there was still an encounter between Derschavin and the young Pushkin . In 1815, as a pupil of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Pushkin presented his poem Memories of Tsarskoye Selo to the prince poet, who distinguished him for this. Pushkin processed this positive experience in Eugene Onegin's last line :

...

The applause met me happily

I was lifted by the young prize won

Derschavin gave me his blessing

The grave-weary poet.

The Derschawin glacier in Antarctica is named after Derschawin .

Web links

Commons : Gawriil Romanowitsch Derschawin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Collected works in Russian, pdf
• Literature by and about Gawriil Romanowitsch Derschawin in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Gawriil Romanowitsch Derschawin  in the German Digital Library