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Ivan (Andreyevich) Krylov (1769-1844) | |
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Russian writer of fables in the tradition of Aesop and La Fontaine. Krylov satirized social and individual faults in the guise of beasts, producing 203 fables in nine books. They are still an integral part of Russian primary and secondary education. Krylov was in his country one of the great representatives of the Age of Reason. His writings appeared in a period marked by increasingly repressive rule in Russia. Heaven save you from a foolish friend; Ivan Andreyevich Krylov was born in a provincial town near St. Petersburg into an impoverished family. His father was an army captain in the bureaucracy. He died when Krylov was ten. At an early age Krylov played the violin and composed poetry. He performed in innumerable family concerts, in quartets with the best virtuosi of the day, and as a soloist. Krylov had little formal education in his childhood. He entered the imperial civil service and in 1782 he was transferred from Tver to St. Petersburg. Between the years 1783 and 1793 he wrote five comic operas. Krylov became the center of a small intellectual circle in St. Petersburg. From 1789 to 1793 he edited with Nikolai I. Novikov and Alexander N. Radishchev a satirical magazine Pochva dukhov. It published social commentary in the guise of letters written by figures from the underworld and soon had troubles with the censor. Krylov's own contributions include 'Kaib, An Oriental Tale,' which depicts the inadequacies of autocracy, and the 'Eulogy to the Memory of My Grandfather', a satire in the best spirit of Enlightenment. Krylov faced political persecution from the repressive government of Catherine the Great and he left St. Petersburg c. 1797. From the mid-1790s to 1802 Krylov virtually disappeared from the literary scene. He travelled widely and experienced some hard periods, which made him more reluctant to express his opinions openly. Only two plays, the comedy The Pie and a mock tragedy Trumpf can be dated from this period. He tutored at the country estate of a patron and served as a governor's secretary in 1801-02. After 1801 he lived in Moscow for five years and then returned to St. Petersburg. In 1806 he wrote two successful plays, The Fashion Shop and A Lesson to the Daughters. In 1805 Krylov began to translate the fables of Jean de La Fontaine, but he soon found that he could write fables of his own – with a sharper edge and keener social commentary. He had become associated with the cultural circle of A.N. Olenin, which advocated the creation of national literature. Krylov published his first collection of fables in 1809, devoting himself entirely to that genre. After Krylov's books attracted the attention of the imperial family, he gained a post in the St. Petersburg public library, where he worked for 30 years as a librarian. When Alexander I promised to support Krylov if he wrote "well", he did not write anything. Between the years 1824 and 1826 he did not compose any poems, and he was commonly called the laziest man in Russia. Krylov wrote over 200 satires during his lifetime. He often dealt with human follies, but also social defects, and current events. Many of his aphorisms have become part of everyday Russian speech. Krylov died in St. Petersburg on November 21, 1844. His statue, built in 1855, is situated in the Summer Gardens. Some of Krylov's writings were not published until 1860s, among them the satire 'Multi-colored sheep' about Alexander I's policies. In it The Lion doesn't tolerate multi-colored sheep, but as a merciful ruler of animals it cannot destroy them directly. It asks the advice of the Fox, who says that it should hire a wolf as their shepherd. The result is that after some time the multi-colored sheep disappear completely, and number of the others too. The rest of the animals explain this to themselves that the Lion is good but the Wolf is a bad robber. The play Trumpf was an attack on the regime of Paul I and was published in 1871. Among Krylov's friends were Ivan Gnedich, translator of Iliad, and Aleksandr Pushkin, whose first line in Evgenii Onegin is a reworking of a line from Krylov. In the last decades of his life, Krylov was a loved figure of St. Petersburg's artistic circles. However, the canonized image of a wise and kindly 'Grandpapa Krylov' is far from the unsentimental message of his works, his social criticism and bitter view of human nature: "The weak against the strong. Is always in the wrong." Krylov also satirized other writers, including Ekaterina Sumarokova (1746-97), the first Russian woman poet to publish. Krylos mocked her in the satirical play PROKAZNIKI (1788) as "Mrs Chatterbox". Krylov's animal fables blend naturalistic characterization of the animal with an allegorical portrayal of basic human types. His miniature dramas capture problematic situations common to all people – such as relations between people of the different caste and class. Krylov's epigrams often attacked corruption and incompetence. Some of his tales dealt with the Napoleonic wars, such as 'Wolf in dog kennel' and 'Friendship of dogs' – Bonaparte was of course the wolf. In the latter two dogs decide to be friends and help each other but they break all promises immediately when a bone is thrown between them. Krylov referred in the tale to the peace negotiations of the Vienna Congress of 1815. For further reading: Ivan Krylov, ed. by Nicholas P. Vaslef (1973); Ivan Krylov by Nikolay Stepanov (1974); I.A. Krylov: Poeziia narodnoi mudrosti by V. Arkhipov (1974); Krylov fabuliste by Maurice Colin (1975); Zhizn' Ivana Krylova by A. Gordin (1985); Poet i mudrets by V.I. Korovin (1996); Reference Guide to Russian Literature, ed. by Neil Cornwell (1998) - Suom.: Krylovilta on suomennettu satuvalikoima Eläintarinoita (1974), toinen painos nimellä Krylovin faabeleita (1979). Selected works:
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