Afanasy Fet
Afanasy Fet | |
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Born | 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1820 Mtsensk, Russian Empire |
Died | 3 December 1892 Moscow, Russian Empire | (aged 71)
Relatives | Vladimir Semenkovich |
Signature | |
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (Russian: Афана́сий Афана́сьевич Фет, IPA: [ɐfɐˈnasʲɪj ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈfʲɛt] ), later known as Shenshin (Russian: Шенши́н, IPA: [ʂɨnˈʂɨn] ; 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1820 – 3 December [O.S. 21 November] 1892), was a renowned Russian poet regarded as the finest master of lyric verse in Russian literature.[1][2]
Biography
Afanasy Fet was born on 5 December 1820 to Afanasy Shenshin, a 44-year-old Russian landlord from
Fourteen years later, as Shenshin and Becker's marriage, registered in Germany, proved to be legally void in Russia, Afanasy had to change his surname from Shenshin to Foeth, that of his biological father.
Education and literary debut
At age 14 Afanasy Shenshin was sent to a
In the late 1830s Fet showed some of his poems to Pogodin, who sent them to
In 1842–1843 Fet's poems were regularly printed in Otechestvennye Zapiski and
Military service and the Sovremennik years
In 1844 Fet graduated from the University. Later that year he lost his mother to cancer. In early 1845 he left the Novosyolky estate, went to Kherson, and in April, following the Shenshin family tradition, joined the Imperial Cuirassier regiment as a junior officer with the view of possibly retrieving his surname and all the privileges of nobility he'd lost with it.[4] There was just one aspect of the army life that he enjoyed, discipline. Otherwise, he complained in letters of cultural isolation and feeling 'buried alive'. On one occasion he described his experience there as "life amongst monsters" when "once an hour another Viy approaches you, expecting you to smile back."[10][11]
In autumn 1848 Fet fell in love with 20-year-old Maria Lazich, a well-educated and intelligent girl, who loved him too. Seeing no way of marrying the penniless daughter of a poor Kherson landowner, Fet abandoned her. In 1851 Maria died, having set her dress on fire. Some suggested this might have been an accident, others saw it as the final statement of "a proud and desperate girl who decided life was not worthwhile without the man she loved." Maria died from her burns four days later, her last words allegedly being: "Do not blame him for this."[3] An immense feeling of remorse tormented Fet for the rest of his life. This incident and the image of Maria would frequently be evoked in his later verses.[6]
In the late 1840s, after stopping for several years, Fet returned to writing. In 1850 a collection called Poems by A. Fet heralded his successful return to the Russian literary scene.
Poems by A.A. Fet came out in 1856 but proved to be little more than a re-worked and edited version of his 1850 book.[12] According to writer and memoirist Avdotya Panaeva, Fet gave Nekrasov and Turgenev carte blanche in compiling this anthology and while the former was against extensive editing, the latter insisted on drastic cuts and, in the end, his argument won out.[13] In the preface to the book, Nekrasov wrote: "Not a single poet since Pushkin has managed to give such delight to those who understand poetry and readily open their soul to it, as Fet does. This does not mean to say both are equal: it's just that in his own field Fet is as superb as Pushkin was in his, much more vast and diverse one."[1]
By 1856, when the poetry collections by Fet and Nekrasov came out almost simultaneously, their personal relations had already become strained due to ideological differences. In his 1859 essay on Fyodor Tyutchev Fet wrote: "The notion that poetry's social mission, moral value, or relevance could be superior to its artistic aspects, is nightmarish to me; I abandoned this notion long ago." The rift with the rest of the Sovremennik staff became apparent, and later that year Fet left the journal, now dominated by Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov.[1]
Retirement from the army
In 1857 in
Leo Tolstoy, who retired to his Yasnaya Polyana country estate at roughly the same time, approved of Fet's decision to "settle upon the land".[17] Unlike Tolstoy, though, who departed to the country looking for better working conditions, Fet stopped writing altogether. "He turned into an agronomist, a 'landlord in desperation', let his beard grow, some improbable behind-the-ears curls as well is unwilling to hear of literature and only damns all periodicals enthusiastically," Turgenev informed Polonsky in a May 1861 letter.[18] "Once I was a poor man, a regimental adjutant, now, thank God, I am an Oryol, Kursk and Voronezh landowner, and live in a beautiful manor with a park. All this I've achieved by hard labour, not by some machinations", wrote Fet in a letter to Reveliotti, his Army officer friend.[19]
Later years
In 1860s Fet translated
In 1873 Fet wrote to his wife: "You cannot even imagine how I hate the name Fet. I implore you never to mention it… If someone would ask me to give one single name to all the trials and tribulations of my life, I'd say without hesitation, this name is 'Fet'".[2] That same year Fet's greatest ambition was finally achieved: Tsar Alexander II granted him the return of his stepfather's surname with all the rights and privileges of the Russian nobility. Turgenev greeted with sarcasm "the disappearance of Fet and the emergence of Shenshin." More sympathetic proved to be Leo Tolstoy who praised Fet's courage and patience in bringing this painful matter to an end.[21] Now officially Shenshin, the poet retained Fet as his nom de plume.[2]
In 1873 Fet bought a second village, Vorobyovka, nearby Kursk and returned to writing poetry. "At Vorobyovka my muse awoke from many years of sleep and started visiting me as often as she used to at the dawn of my life," Fet wrote to Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov on 25 August 1891.[2] In 1881 Fet bought a small house at Plyuschikha Street in Moscow. From then on he would spend winters in the city, move to Vorobyovka in April and stay there till late September.[1] The result of this new surge of creativity were four books of the Evening Lights series (released in 1883, 1885, 1888 and 1891) which featured some of his finest work.[6]
Fighting off hostile reviewers, who were making much of the contrast between an affluent and somewhat pompous landowner and his sublime, elegant poetry, Fet insisted it was his pragmatism that helped him get the absolute artistic freedom.
In 1890 two volumes of Fet's My Memories: 1848–1889 were published. Another book, My Early Years, came out posthumously, in 1893.[1] On 28 January 1892 at the Moscow Hermitage restaurant the grandiose event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Fet's literary career was held. He seemed pleased with the lavishness of it, but later in the poem On My Muse's 50th Birthday referred to the celebration as a 'requiem'. On 26 February Fet was granted the title of kamerger by a monarch's decree.[3] His last poem is dated 23 October 1892.[2]
Death
The circumstances of Fet's death caused almost as much controversy as those of his birth. In October 1892, Fet moved from Vorobyovka to his Moscow house. While visiting Countess Sophia Tolstaya he caught cold and later contracted severe bronchitis. The family doctor Ostroumov, speaking to Fet's wife, fearing that the poet was moribund, suggested that he take Communion. "Afanasy Afanasyevich recognizes none of such rituals," she replied and assured the doctor she was ready to take the sin of depriving a dying man of his communion upon herself.[6][22]
Early in the morning on 21 November Fet suddenly sent for champagne. His wife protested, but he seemed to be in great agitation and haste. "Go and return as quickly as you can," he ordered. As Maria left, Fet told his secretary (referred to later as Mrs. F.): "Come with me, I will dictate to you". – "A letter?" she enquired. "No", came the reply. His secretary followed him and wrote the following: "I see no reason for consciously prolonging my suffering. I willingly chose to do what would be inevitable anyway." He signed this: "21 November. Fet (Shenshin)", with a "firm hand, certainly not that of a dying man," according to the biographer Boris Sadovskoy.[22]
What followed was described as "a kind of mental storm some people experience when facing death. Only a bout of temporary madness could account for his starting running about, fetching dinner and paper knives which obviously could do him no serious harm," Sadovskoy wrote. As Fet grabbed a paper knife from the table before him, his secretary managed to disarm him, injuring her hand.
Chased by his bleeding secretary, Fet entered a dining-room, approached the cabinet where table-knives were kept and unsuccessfully tried to open it. Then, panting, he suddenly fell on a chair. According to the secretary, his eyes opened wide, as if facing some terrible sight, his hand rose as if to make a cross, then fell down lifeless. The cause of his death was later believed to be a heart attack. The funeral service was held on 22 November 1892 at the Moscow University church. Afanasy Fet was interred on 23 November in his family vault in Kleymyonovo, the old Shenshin family estate.[4][22]
Legacy
In retrospect, Afanasy Fet is regarded as the greatest lyric poet of Russia. His verses were highly esteemed by
Professor Pyotr Kudryavtsev also considered Fet a great master of melody-driven verse. His poetry, 'unique in terms of aesthetics,' can be taken as proof that "real poetry is self-sufficient and its sources won't dry out even in the most unfavorable times," Kudryavtsev argued.[1]
Yet, Fet was not a popular poet during his lifetime. Vasily Botkin remarked that even in the 1860s when his books enjoyed mostly positive reviews, "the general public treated these praises skeptically… If he was successful at all, then mostly with the literary men."[23] One reason for this might have been his unwillingness to change according to the 'spirit of the times'. "Unlike Nekrasov, who expressed zeitgeist perfectly, always going with the flow, Fet refused to 're-tune his lyre's strings'," the Soviet scholar Dmitry Blagoy argued.[2]
Fet's aesthetics and philosophy
Fet was the proponent of the romantic idea of the need for a poet to make a distinction between the two life spheres, the 'ideal' and the 'real' one. "Only the ideal sphere gives one an opportunity to take a whiff of a higher life," he asserted in his memoirs. This sphere, according to Fet, encompassed beauty, love, moments of harmony between the human soul and the infinite cosmos, and Art as such. Longing for the Ideal, according to biographer Tarkhov, was the driving force of Fet's poetry.[1] In his essay on Tytchev, published by Russkoye Slovo in 1859, Fet maintained that it was only 'pure love' (the concept introduced to the Russian literature by Vasily Zhukovsky) that 'pure art' was supposed to serve. While in the 1840s such ideas were still attractive, in the 1860s Fet found himself a lone figure among the predominantly realist writers.[1]
Fet considered natural philosophy to be a mechanism for examining ties, seen and unseen, between man and nature. Along the lines of his quest for 'wholeness', he united poems into cycles ("Spring", "Summer", "Autumn", "Snow", "Melodies", "Fortune-telling"), each representing some aspect of the soul, all united by the leitmotif of merging with what lies outside the boundaries of human perception. Only the 'life outside' gives man moments of absolute freedom, Fet argued. The way to these outer realms lies in communicating with Nature, which has a soul of its own, through moments of joy ('one-ness'). Female beauty served as part of the whole picture for Fet who had the cycle of poems dedicated to women (A.Brzhevskaya, Sophia Tolstaya, A.Osufieva, and others) based on his 'philosophy of beauty'. The process of regaining unity with nature leads man out of the corrupt real world and brings him ecstatic joy and total happiness, according to Fet.[6]
Political views
Vladimir Semenkovich, the author of several books on Fet, argued that he was "...neither a liberal nor a conservative, just a man of the 1840s, or, should I rather say, one of the last men of the 1840s. One thing in which he might have differed from [the people of his generation] was that he was more of a practical man... Being courageous enough to have his own opinions, he spoke against the predominant social theory… and for that has been subjected to ostracism in the times when going against the grain was unthinkable."[24] "My father thought [Fet's] greatest asset was the ability to think independently: he always had his own ideas, never borrowed them from other people," remembered Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy.[25]
Fet's 'cult of domesticity' held 'civil labour' as another high ideal. For him 'natural' attitude to work was analogous to love, serving as a link with Nature and having the potential to bringing back harmony to the society that had lost it. Built into Fet's 'philosophy of labour' was the romantic notion of freedom. He advocated the free development of human character and warned against exceedingly regulating social life.[6] "An artful tutor should learn to restrain himself from removing what looks to him as ugly features of his subject. Cut off a young fur-tree's crooked branches and you'll kill it… Wait for forty years and you'll see a straight and strong trunk with a green crown," Fet wrote in 1871.[6][26]
Personality
According to Vladimir Semenkovich common people admired Fet. "A 'proper kind of barin,' was how peasants called him. And this was being said of a 'barin' who never hesitated to tell boldly the truth, to peasants too, not just men of his own class," he wrote.[24] Peasants greatly respected Fet for, among other things, his ability to make peace between feuding parties of his rural community, all the while expressing himself in the most straightforward way. "Fet was one of the few people [in Russia] who could be described as 'classic' Europeans, in the best sense of this word; with his vast education and delicate manners he was reminiscent of the French marquises of better times," Semenkovich opined.[24]
Never an open person, over the years Fet has become even more secretive and self-centered. "Never, as far as I can remember, has he expressed any interest in any other person's inner world," wrote Tatyana Kuzminskaya, Leo Tolstoy's sister-in-law, to whom Fet dedicated one of his most beautiful poems ("The night was shining, trees were full of moonlight…").
Dismissed as unpleasant and dour by Tolstoy's children, Fet was adored by the master of Yasnaya Polyana himself. "…The reason why we admire each other is that we two are the kind of men who are capable of thinking with, to use your own expression, 'heart's mind' as opposed to 'brain's mind'," Tolstoy wrote in a 28 June 1867 letter. "Intellectually you are superior to everybody else who's around me. You're the only one who can give [my mind] this 'different kind of bread' for it to be satiated with," he confessed on another occasion.[29] "You are one of the very few people I came to know in my lifetime who, while retaining totally rational attitude to life, have always stood on its edge, staring into nirvana. [People like you] see life clearer for peering into timelessness, for it is this way they greatly strengthen their [earthly] vision," wrote Tolstoy in an April 1876 letter.[30]
Sample
External videos | |
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I have come to you, delighted... on YouTube by actor Vladimir Samoylov. |
I Have Come to You, Delighted («Я пришёл к тебе с приветом…»)
- Я пришёл к тебе с приветом,
- Рассказать, что солнце встало,
- Что оно горячим светом
- По листам затрепетало;
- Рассказать, что лес проснулся,
- Весь проснулся, веткой каждой,
- Каждой птицей встрепенулся
- И весенней полон жаждой;
- Рассказать, что с той же страстью,
- Как вчера, пришёл я снова,
- Что душа всё так же счастью
- И тебе служить готова;
- Рассказать, что отовсюду
- На меня весельем веет,
- Что не знаю сам, что́ буду
- Петь — но только песня зреет.
- I have come to you, delighted,
- To tell you that sun has risen,
- That its light has warmly started
- To fulfil on leaves its dancing;
- To tell you that wood's awaken
- In its every branch and leafage,
- And with every bird is shaken,
- Thirsty of the springy image;
- To tell you that I’ve come now,
- As before, with former passion,
- That my soul again is bound
- To serve you and your elation;
- That the charming breath of gladness
- Came to me from all-all places,
- I don't know what I'll sing, else,
- But my song's coming to readiness.[31]
Notes
- Kiev University.
- ^ It was this humiliation, scholars later opined, that accounted for the idiosyncrasies of a man who spent most of his life contemplating suicide. This outcome, though, was not the worst of possible evils: as an illegitimate child he fell to the bottom of the Russian social hierarchy.
- ^ There are several marginal theories as to Fet's parents' origins. According to one of them, advocated by the Russian women's magazine Sudarushka, Charlotte Becker descended from an "ancient aristocratic family based in East Germany" while Johann Foeth was an illegitimate son of Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse, which supposedly made Afanasy Fet a cousin of Maria Alexandrovna.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Tarkhov, A. A.A.Fet. Verses and Poems. Contemporaries on Fet. Moscow, Pravda Publishing house. 1988. A Foreword. "To Give Life a Breath..." pp. 5–16.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Blagoy, Dmitry (1983). "Afanasy Fet: the Poet and the Man". Remembering A.Fet. Foreword by D. Blagoy. Compiled by A.Tarkhov Moscow. Pravda. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f Bezelyansky, Yuri. "Landowner Shenshin and the Poet Fet". www.c-cafe.ru. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Strakhov, Nikolai. A.A.Fet. Biographical sketch. Lyrical Poems, Vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1894. pp. 328–334.
- ^ Mirsky, D.S. "The History of Russian Literature". az.lib.ru. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet". "Russian Writers". Biobibliographical Dictionary. Moscow. Prosveshchenye. Vol 2. Ed. P.A.Nikolayev. 1990. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
- ^ Belinsky, V.G. Vol. VII, pp. 636–637; Vol. VIII, p. 94
- ^ "Otechestvennye Zapiski", 1840, Vol. 12, Sc. VI, pp. 40–42; Belinsky's letter to Vasily Botkin, 26 December 1840. The Complete V.G.Belinsky in 12 Volumes. Vol. XI. Moscow, p. 584.
- ^ Apollon Grigoriev. Ophelia (fragment). A.A.Fet. Poems. Moscow, 1988. pp. 341–342.
- ^ Fet, А. Early Years of My Life (Rannye gody moyei zhizni). pp. 341, 318; "The Correspondence of Fet and I.P.Borisov". Literaturnaya Mysl. Book I. Petersburg, Mysl Publishers. 1922, pp. 214, 227–228.
- ^ "Literaturnaya Mysl", Book I, pp. 216, 220.
- ^ Blagoy, Dmitry. From Russian Literature's Past. Turgenev and Fet. Publishing and Revolution magazine. 1923, Book 3, pp. 45–64.
- ^ Panayeva, Avdotya. From Memoirs (Iz vospominany). А.А.Fet. Verses and Poems. Moscow. Pravda. 1988. p. 351
- ^ A.A. Fet. Poems. Moscow, 1988. Letters. р.414.
- ^ Fet, А. My Memories. Part 2. p. 210.
- ^ The Works by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Moscow, 1968. Vol. 6. pp. 59–60).
- ^ 23 February 1860. Letters. The Complete L.N. Tolstoy. Vol. 60, p. 324.
- ^ 21 May 1861. The Complete I.S. Turgenev. Letters. Vol. IV, p. 240.
- ^ Grigorovich, А. The History of the 13th Dragoons Regiment, vol.I. Saint Petersburg, 1912, p. 223.
- ^ Lavrensky, М. (D.L.Mikhaylovsky). Shakespeare as Translated by Fet. Sovremennik, 1859, No.6, pp. 255–258.
- ^ Tolstoy, L.N. The Complete of... Vol. 62, p. 63.
- ^ a b c Sadovskoy, Boris. The Death of Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet. "А.А.Fet. Verses and Poems. Contemporaries on Fet". Moscow. Pravda, 1988. pp. 444–450.
- ^ The Works of V.P. Botkin. Vol. 2, Saint Petersburg, 1891, p. 368.
- ^ a b c Semenkovich, V. "А.А.Fet. Verses and Poems. Contemporaries on Fet". Moscow. Pravda, 1988. pp. 450–456.
- ^ "А.А.Fet. Verses and Poems. Contemporaries on Fet". Moscow. Pravda, 1988. p. 403.
- ^ Fet, А. From the Country. Zarya (Заря) magazine. 1871. No 6. pp. 9–10
- ^ "Т.А.Kuzminskaya on А.А.Fet", p. 172.
- ^ Tolstoy, L. "А.А.Fet. Verses and Poems. Contemporaries on Fet". Moscow. Pravda, 1988. p. 412.
- ^ Leo Tolstoy's letters: 7 November 1866, 24 June 1874, 30 August 1869. – The Complete L.N.Tolstoy. Vol. 61, pp. 149, 219; Vol. 62, p. 96
- ^ "А.А.Fet. Verses and Poems. Contemporaries on Fet," Tolstoy wrote in April 1876. Moscow. Pravda, 1988. pp. 357–463.
- ^ Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, March 2001