Krylov and Many Others: The Genesis and Meaning of Russia’s First Literary Jubilee

ABSTRACT

This article is devoted to the 1838 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of I.A. Krylov’s literary career, an event that has been seen as representing a crystallization of Russia’s literary community’s sense of self and a point at which the state began to appreciate its importance.

KEYWORDS:

• Russian literature 1820–1830
• literary community
• appropriation by the state [ogosudarstvlenie]
• literary jubilees

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. This article was written in 2014–15 as part of Project No. 14-01-0205 with support from the NRU HSE Scientific Fund.

^2. Permission to Muscovites to give such a memento to the official who was governing them was granted as an exception. The corresponding senate decree is dated March 9, 1832 (see Polnoe sobranie zakonov, 1833, pp. 135–56).

^3. These lines have been attributed to E.A. Baratynskii, but without sufficient evidence.

^4. This had to do with the sovereign’s displeasure at the artist’s behavior, since after Briullov had attained his professional status, he had been in no hurry to return to St. Peterburg to fulfill his new responsibilities.

^5. The only exception was ten belated lines in Khudozhestvennaia gazeta, which began publication in September of that same year (Khudozhestvennaia gazeta, 1836, p. 16). The promise by the publisher, N.V. Kukol’nik, to improve on coverage of “the circumstances surrounding the celebration of Russian artists” was never fulfilled.

^6. This understanding of Glinka’s accomplishments was expressed in a couplet attributed to Kukol’nik and supposedly written immediately after the premiere: “With him Russian music rose bright as the dawn,/LIke Life for the Tsar his renown will live long.” [S nim muzyki russkoi zardelas’ zaria, / Zabyt on ne budet, kak “Zhizn’ za tsaria”] (for details, see Shteinpress, 1950, pp. 125–26).

^7. See, for example, the medal coined in honor of the fiftieth jubilee of Pastor H. Petri (1748), Goethe (1825, 1826), the physician Ch.W. Hufeland (1833), and General C.F.H. von Lottum (1834), among others.

^8. For example, 1190 people subscribed in honor of Zagorskii, a majority of whom were doctors, including from the provinces.

^9. Zagorskii was awarded a diamond-studded snuffbox with the imperial monogram; Riul’ received an Order of the White Eagle medal.

^10. The German Medical Society, founded in St. Petersburg in 1819, helped to foster European traditions within the Russian medical community.

^11. For the most energetic approaches to this problem, see Grits, Trenin, and Nikitin, 1929; and Reitblat, 2014.

^12. Krylov’s fable, “Krest’ianin i ovtsa” was published in the 1823 edition of the Poliarnaia zvezda and his “Vorona” and “Mel’nik” appeared there in the 1825.

^13. This is a reference to the censorship statute of 1828, which was more sensible and flexible than the “iron” statute of 1826. Cf. a version of this same toast: “To the health of the tsar and emperor, author of the magnificent book, Ustav tsenzury (Gordin and Gordin, 1982, p. 91).

^14. The “truce” between members of the warring literary camps hosted by Smirdin was limited in scope. For example, Pushkin could not resist jesting at Bulgarin’s and Grech’s expense, comparing the censor V.N. Semenov, who was sitting between them, to Christ being crucified between two brigands (“Rasskazy o Pushkine,” 1870, p. 570).

^15. Later, V.I. Dal’ gave the word a similar meaning in his dictionary, illustrating it with examples that grate contemporary ears” “iubilei piatidesiatiletiia sluzhby” and “iubilei tysiacheletiia Rusi.”

^16. A brief comparison of Smirdin’s and Voeikov’s dinners is in the regional history work: Sidorenko, 2012.

^17. Concerning the high level of trustworthiness of these memoirs, which are based on the author’s diary entries, see Il’in-Tomich, 1992, pp. 181–82.

^18. E.M. Olenina died on July 3, 1838, five months after Krylov’s jubilee was celebrated.

^19. Krylov and S.N. Glinka both began their writing careers publishing in Pochta dukhov, which first came out in January 1789 (Gordin and Gordin, 1982, p. 191).

^20. GARF, f. 109, op. 68, 2-ia ekspeditsiia, no. 40.

^21. Ibid., 1–2ob.

^22. Government offices were traditionally closed on February 2, due to the Presentation of Our Lord [Sretenie Gospodne] holiday. Perhaps the organizers at first felt it was inappropriate to hold a secular celebration on such a day.

^23. The article’s authors are working on a special study dedicated to the phenomenon of the “ ogosudarstvlenie” of Krylov.

^24. GARF, f. 109, op. 68, 2-ia ekspeditsiia, no. 40, 3–3ob.

^25. This animosity was exacerbated in the autumn of 1836 in connection with the affair of Chaadaev’s Teleskop publication, which lasted more than half a year (see Velizhev, 2010, pp. 28–33).

^26. GARF, f. 109, op. 68, 2-ia ekspeditsiia, no. 40, 4–4ob.