Pedigree of the poet Feta. Life and creative destiny A

Childhood

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820–1892) was born in the very center of Russia - in the Oryol region. The names of I.S. are associated with this region. Turgeneva, L.A. Andreeva, I.A. Bunina, N.S. Leskova. Researchers are still arguing whether Fet was the son of the landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, on whose estate he was born, or whether his mother Charlotte Fet gave birth to a child from her German ex-husband. Fet Shenshin fell passionately in love with Charlotte while being treated in Germany, and secretly took her to Russia, where a few months later a boy was born, who became a wonderful Russian poet...

At the end of his life, Fet wrote his memoirs “The Early Years of My Life” (they were published after his death, in 1893). He speaks dryly and reservedly about his childhood. This is not surprising. He remembered his father as stern, stingy with affection. Namely, his character and his rules determined the home atmosphere. The poet's mother was a timid, submissive woman. Deprived of parental warmth, little Afanasy spent entire hours communicating with the servants.

The boy first learned to read and write German under the guidance of his mother. And when I began to read in Russian, I became passionately interested in Pushkin’s poetry.

Boyhood

School life began for Afanasy at the age of thirteen. He was sent to the boarding house of the German Krümmer in the small town of Verrlo (currently Võru), located in what is now Estonia. Among the school fraternity, the boy was distinguished by his gift of poetry. Poetic talent grew in Fet’s soul with difficulty, but steadily. There was no one to perceive and nurture this talent away from home. And then an event happened that changed my whole life. From birth, he bore his father’s family noble surname – Shenshin. But a year after the start of his studies at the boarding school, the boy received a letter from his father, which said that from now on Afanasy should bear his mother’s surname - Fet. (He became a fet later and by accident: in the printing house where the magazine with his poems was printed, the typesetter forgot to put two dots on the “e”.) For a teenager who loved his father, this was a blow and, in addition, meant that he was deprived of his noble title title and right to be an heir.

But the fact was that the boy was born before his father’s marriage to Charlotte Föt was consecrated by the church. Shenshin managed to record it in the metric documents, but in 1834 the forgery somehow surfaced. Leaving the boarding school as a seventeen-year-old youth, Afanasy Fet left behind annoying witnesses to his unexpected disaster.

Youth

In the winter of 1837, Afanasy Neofitovich unexpectedly arrived at the boarding school and took his son to Moscow to prepare for entering the university. When the time came for the exams, Fet passed them brilliantly. He was accepted into law school. Soon the young man transferred to the verbal department of the Faculty of Philosophy. But he did not become a diligent student. Instead of sitting in a crowded audience, he sought solitude, and poems multiplied in his treasured notebook.

By the second year, the notebook had been thoroughly replenished. The time has come to present it to an experienced connoisseur. Fet handed over the notebook to the historian M.P. Pogodin, with whom N.V. lived at that time. Gogol. A week later, Pogodin returned the poems with the words: “Gogol said that this is an undoubted talent.” Fet decided to use the borrowed three hundred rubles to publish a collection of poetry and call it “Lyrical Pantheon.” On the title page were the first letters of the author’s first and last name – A.F.

First publications

At the end of 1840, Fet was already holding his first thin book. It was dominated by imitative poems, which the author subsequently did not dare to reprint. However, soon after the release of “The Lyrical Pantheon” he became different in many ways - an original, original poet.

Magazines eagerly published his poems. Fet gained many fans among poetry connoisseurs. But they could not return to him the title of nobility and the surname Shenshin. But he could not come to terms with this loss. And Afanasy Afanasyevich made a firm decision - to go into military service. According to the law of that time, the rank of officer should have returned him to the nobility, but due to changing rules in this regard, he managed to become Shenshin again only in old age. And not thanks to military merit, but by the “highest command” of the emperor.

First love

After graduating from the university (1844), Fet a year later entered the Cuirassier regiment, stationed in the Kherson province.

While in military service, Fet met an intelligent, charming girl, Maria Lazic. In Maria, Fet found a connoisseur of poetry, a connoisseur of his own poems. Love came... But Lazic was poor. Dreaming of restoring his noble title and material wealth, Fet did not dare to marry a dowryless woman. The lovers separated. Soon Maria Lazic died tragically. Her image captivated Fet’s poetic feeling all his life. Words of love, repentance and longing came from his pen.

Petersburg. Collaboration with Sovremennik

In 1850, Fet's second collection was published. It published the poem “Whisper, Timid Breathing...”, which for many became almost a symbol of all of Fet’s poetry. In 1853, Fet began serving in the guard and moved from south to north, to the location of his new regiment. Camp training now took place near St. Petersburg, and the poet had the opportunity to visit the capital.

He renews old literary acquaintances and makes new ones. In particular, with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine, which was headed by N.A. Nekrasov, who rallied many talented writers around himself.

In Sovremennik, Fet came to court. The poet felt sincere attention to himself and perked up. Paper and pencil beckoned to him again. 50s became the poet’s “finest hour”, the time of the most complete recognition of his talent. Fetov's third collection was preparing for release. St. Petersburg fellow writers vigorously discussed each poem of the future book. At that time Fet especially trusted the taste of I.S. Turgenev.

Fet's poems were unusual and unusual. Much of what today seems like innovative achievements seemed linguistic errors to the readers of that time. Turgenev corrected some of Fet's lines, and it has not yet been decided how to publish these poems: with Turgenev's amendments (Fet accepted many of them) or in their original form. For Fet, the word is designed to convey smells, sounds, musical tones, light and floral impressions.

“Escape” to Stepanovka. Break with Sovremennik

In 1860, in his native Oryol province, and even in the same Mtsensk district where Fet was born, he bought the Stepanovka farm and built a house. This is how, in his words, the “flight” to Stepanovka happened. What reasons pushed the poet to this flight?

At the end of the 50s, the passion for poetry gave way to a cooling towards it - Fet’s “finest hour” came to an end. On the eve of the peasant reform of 1861, a division of literary and social forces began. The voices that rejected “pure art” in the name of “practical benefit” sounded louder and louder. The position of Nekrasov's Sovremennik was increasingly determined by the articles of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. As a sign of protest, Fet, together with I.S. Turgenev and L.N. Tolstoy left the magazine.

In 1859, in the magazine “Russian Word,” Fet published an article “On the poems of F. Tyutchev,” where he deliberately challenged public opinion. Art, the poet wrote, should not adhere to any “directions”; it should serve “pure beauty.” Thus, Afanasy Afanasyevich ruined his reputation in the eyes of the democratic public; now he was considered a reactionary, and his lyrics were considered a “departure from life.” Fet isolates himself in the estate, as if in a fortress, not accepting hostile modernity.

And yet, Fet’s village housewarming was caused not only by these reasons. All his poetry shows that the poet loved the earth, rural nature, and knew a lot about plants, birds, and animals. Having entered, as it were, a double retirement (both in service and in literature), Fet devoted himself entirely to economic concerns. Over seventeen years of life and hard work, he turned Stepanovka into an exemplary profitable estate. But Fet does not stop writing. At this time, he translated the ancient poet Anacreot, oriental (Saadi, Hafiz), German (Heine, Goethe), French (Musset, Beranger) authors. It was Fet who first translated into Russian the treatise of the German philosopher Schopenhauer “The World as Will and Representation.”

Beginning in 1883, Fet began to publish one after another collections of poems under the general title “Evening Lights.” The title is frankly symbolic: we are talking about the evening of life. However, perhaps the word “lights” is more important here. The poet's late lyrics not only retained the intensity of the heartfelt feeling inherent in youth, but also acquired the property of radiating the light of wisdom. In 1890, as a seventy-year-old man, Fet proclaimed:

While on the earthly chest
Although I will have difficulty breathing,
All the thrill of life is young
I will be able to hear it from everywhere.

Poems for analysis and recitation by heart

Philosophical lyrics: “Only when I meet your smile...”, “On a haystack at night in the south...”;
“Dream of feelings” (Ap. Grigoriev) in poetry: “I’m waiting... Nightingale echo...”; “The cat is singing, his eyes are squinting...”, “There are patterns on the double glass...”, “I’m falling off the chair, looking at the ceiling...”, “No, don’t expect a passionate song...”;
Lyrics of nature: “How fresh it is here under the thick linden tree...”, “Still fragrant spring bliss...”, “Above the lake a swan pulled into the reeds...”
Lyrics of love: “Don’t leave me...,” “The smile of languid boredom...”, “By the fireplace,” “In the darkness above the bright tripod...”, “The night was shining, the moon was full of the garden...”

Literature

Nina Sukhova. Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet // Encyclopedia for children “Avanta+”. Volume 9. Russian literature. Part one. M., 1999
L.M. Lotman. A.A. Fet. // History of Russian literature. Volume three. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982. pp. 427 – 446

Introduction .

Fet is the only one of the great Russian poets who confidently and consistently (with a few exceptions) protected his artistic world from socio-political problems. However, these problems themselves not only did not leave Fet indifferent, but, on the contrary, aroused his deep interest, became the subject of sharp journalistic articles and essays, and were constantly discussed in correspondence. They penetrated into poetry very rarely. Fet seemed to feel the unpoeticism of the social ideas that he developed and defended. At the same time, he generally considered unpoetic any work in which there is a clearly expressed thought, an open tendency, especially the alien tendency of modern democratic poetry. From the late 1850s - early 1860s onwards, the artistic principles of the Nekrasov school aroused in Fet not only ideological antagonism, but also a persistent, heightened aesthetic rejection.

Fet's phenomenon lay in the fact that the very nature of his artistic gift most fully corresponded to the principles of “pure art.” “...When starting to study the poet,” Belinsky wrote in the fifth article about Pushkin, “first of all, one must grasp, in the diversity and variety of his works, the secret of his personality, that is, those features of his spirit that belong only to him alone. This, however, does not mean that these features are something private, exceptional, alien to other people: it means that everything common to humanity never appears in one person, but every person, to a greater or lesser extent, is born for in order to realize with one’s personality one of the infinitely diverse aspects of the human spirit, as incomprehensible as the world and eternity.”

Belinsky considered one of the urgent needs of the human spirit to be his striving for beauty: “Truth and virtue are beautiful and amiable, but beauty is also beautiful and amiable, and one is worth the other, one cannot replace the other.” And again: “...beauty in itself is a quality and a merit, and, moreover, a great one.”

Using Belinsky’s definition, we can say that Fet was born to poetically embody a person’s desire for beauty, this was the “secret of his personality.” “I could never understand that art was interested in anything other than beauty,” he admitted at the end of his life Belinsky V. G. Poln. collection op. and letters in 13 vols. T. VII. M., 2004. P. 307, 322.. In the programmatic article for his aesthetics “On the poems of F. Tyutchev” (1859), Fet wrote: “Give us, first of all, in the poet his vigilance in relation to beauty.”

Biography of A.A. Feta.

Fet (Shenshin), Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820-1892), Russian poet. Born November 23 (December 5), 1820 in the village. Novoselki near Mtsensk. A few months before his birth, his mother ran away from her husband (and, in all likelihood, the poet’s father, Johann-Peter Foeth) with the Russian landowner Shenshin, who was being treated at the waters in Germany. At baptism, the boy was recorded as the legitimate son of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. Until the age of fourteen, he was considered such, but then the Oryol spiritual consistory considered the father of the boy born before marriage, the Hesse-Darmstadt subject Fet, and assigned him his father's surname. Until then, he studied at home, where, as he recalled in the book “Early Years of My Life,” “from a handwritten book ... I became acquainted with most of the first-class and second-rate Russian poets ... and remembered the poems that I liked most”; then he was sent to a German boarding school in Verro (now Võru, Estonia). In 1837 he came to Moscow and spent six months in the boarding house of Prof. M.P. Pogodin, preparing to enter the university, entered the Faculty of Philosophy in 1838. Fet spent six years as a student instead of the required four (“instead of zealously attending lectures, I wrote new poems almost every day”).

By the end of his stay at the university, Fet’s poetic talent was fully formed: a significant role in this was played by his friend, the future poet and critic A. Grigoriev (Fet lived in their house) and the students around him (Ya. Polonsky, S. Solovyov, K. Kavelin and etc.). His views were formed under the influence of a teacher at the Pogodin boarding school, the future translator of Charles Dickens, who was later associated with the Petrashevites and the young N. Chernyshevsky, I. Vvedensky, to whom he gave a half-joking commitment to continue to “reject the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul.”

In 1840, Fet managed to publish at his own expense a collection of poetic experiments called the Lyrical Pantheon of A.F. In these rehashes of favorite poems, echoes of E. Baratynsky, I. Kozlov and V. Zhukovsky were heard, but most of all, the imitation of V. Benediktov was felt. The book received an encouraging review in “Notes of the Fatherland” and a mocking one in the “Library for Reading” on behalf of Baron Brambeus. The Pantheon in no way foreshadows the poems of that poet, whose first journal publication (with a full signature) were three translations from G. Heine, published at the end of 1841 in Pogodin’s “Moskvityanin”. In 1842-1843, eighty-five of his poems appeared there and in Otechestvennye zapiski, many of which were included in the textbook canon of Fet’s poetry (Aren’t you here like a light shadow, In silent pastures, I know that you, little one, are a sad birch, A wonderful picture, the cat is singing, his eyes are squinting, the midnight blizzard is noisy, etc.). Already in 1843, V. Belinsky considered it necessary to inform in passing that “of all the poets living in Moscow, Mr. Fet is the most gifted,” whose poems he puts on a par with Lermontov’s.

In 1845, the “foreigner Afanasy Fet”, wanting to become a hereditary Russian nobleman (to which the first officer rank gave the right), entered as a non-commissioned officer in a cuirassier regiment stationed in the Kherson province. Cut off from metropolitan life and the literary environment, he almost ceases to be published - especially since magazines, due to the fall in reader demand for poetry, do not show any interest in his poems. Having received censorship permission to publish the book in 1847, Fet published it only in 1850. In the Kherson years, an event occurred that predetermined Fet’s personal life: the dowry girl he loved and was in love with him died in a fire (probably committed suicide). Due to his poverty, he did not dare to marry. Fet’s masterpieces of love lyrics are dedicated to her memory - “On the Long Nights” (1851), “Irresistible Image” (1856), “On a Blessed Day” (1857), “Old Letters” (1859), “In the Silence and Darkness of a Mysterious Night "(1864), "Alter ego" (1878), "You have suffered, I am still suffering" (1878), "Fingers have opened the dear pages again" (1884), "A ray of sun between the linden trees" (1885), "I have dreamed for a long time the cries of your sobs" (1886), "No, I have not changed", "Until deep old age" ... (1887).

In 1853, Fet transferred to the Uhlan Guards Regiment, stationed near Volkhov; During the Crimean campaign he was part of the troops guarding the Estonian coast. Having the opportunity to visit St. Petersburg, Fet became close to the new editors of Sovremennik: N. Nekrasov, I. Turgenev, A. Druzhinin, V. Botkin. The half-forgotten name of Fet appears in articles, reviews, and chronicles of the leading Russian magazine; since 1854, his poems have been widely published there. Turgenev became his literary mentor and editor. He prepared a new edition of Fet's poems, published in 1856, and about half of the poems that made up the 1850 collection were eliminated, and two-thirds of the remaining were revised. Subsequently, Fet stated that “the edition from Turgenev’s editorship came out as cleaned up as it was mutilated,” but made no attempt to return to the rejected texts and variants. This collection made up the first volume of the 1863 edition, the second included translations.

In 1856, Fet left military service without achieving the nobility; in 1857 in Paris he married M.P. Botkina; in 1860 he acquired an estate in his native Mtsensk district, “became an agronomist-owner to the point of desperation” (Turgenev) and from 1862 began regularly publishing essays in the reactionary “Russian Bulletin”, denouncing the post-reform order in the countryside from the perspective of a landowner. In 1867-1877 Fet zealously served as a justice of the peace. In 1873 he was given the surname Shenshin and hereditary nobility. Revolutionary democracy and populism aroused horror and disgust in him, about Chernyshevsky’s novel What to do? he wrote such a harsh article that even Russkiy Vestnik did not dare to publish it. In 1872, Turgenev, breaking off relations with him (later somehow restored), writes: “You have smelled Katkov’s rotten spirit.” In the 1860-1870s, Fet’s only close friend from among the former “literary Areopagus” remained L.N. Tolstoy, they are family friends, often see each other and correspond.

Fet again becomes a half-forgotten poet and does not remind of himself in any way; in his spare time he studies mainly philosophy. He returned to literature only in the 1880s, having become rich and buying a mansion in Moscow in 1881. His youthful friendship with Ya.P. is renewed. Polonsky, he becomes close to the critic N.N. Strakhov and philosopher V.S. Soloviev. In 1881 his translation of Schopenhauer's main work The World as Will and Representation was published, in 1882 - a translation of the first part of J.V. Goethe's Faust, in 1888 - the second part. After a long break, poems are written again, they are published not in magazines, but in issues called “Evening Lights” (I - 1883; II -1885; III - 1888; IV - 1891) with circulations of several hundred copies. In 1883, his poetic translation of all the works of Horace was published - a work begun while still a student. Other Roman classics were translated by him too hastily and sometimes carelessly: in the last seven years of Fet’s life, “The Satires of Juvenal”, “Poems of Catullus”, “Elegies of Tibullus”, “The Metamorphosis and Sorrows of Ovid”, “Elegies of Propertius”, “Aeneid of Virgil”, “Satires of Persia”, “Plautus’ Pot”, Epigrams of Martial. In addition to ancient poets, Fet also translated poems by Goethe (Herman and Dorothea), Fr. Schiller (Semele), A. Musset (Dupont and Durand) and, of course, his beloved Heine. In 1890, two volumes of memoirs, My Memoirs, appeared; the third, The Early Years of My Life, was published posthumously, in 1893. The final edition for his work was to be the publication he prepared in the year of his death, which included sections of poems, poems and translations; the poems were grouped according to mixed thematic and genre characteristics. His plan was partly taken into account in the prepared N.N. Strakhov and "K.R." (Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich) two-volume collection 1894 “Lyrical poems of A. Fet with a biographical sketch of K.R.”, partly in the three-volume set “Complete collection of poems by A. A. Fet” (1901), in full - in the second edition of the large series “Libraries of the Poet” (1959).

Fet's work received a worthy assessment during the poet's lifetime in Solovyov's article “On Lyric Poetry” (1890). Soloviev considered Fet’s own lines to be programmatic:

winged words sound

Grabs the soul and suddenly secures

And the dark delirium of the soul, and the unclear smell of herbs

He himself believed that in the amazing figurative and rhythmic richness of Fet’s poetry “the general meaning of the universe is revealed”: “from the outside, like the beauty of nature, and from the inside, like love.” Fet's lyrics, romantic in their origins (“the rapture of Byron and Lermontov was joined by a terrible passion for Heine’s poems,” Fet wrote), was a kind of overcoming of romantic subjectivism, transforming it into poetic animation, a special kind of sensitivity of worldview. Researcher of Fet's creativity B.Ya. Bukhshtab characterizes his pathos as “rapture of nature, love, art, memories, dreams” and considers him “as if a connecting link between the poetry of Zhukovsky and Blok,” while noting the closeness of the late Fet to the Tyutchev tradition.

The beginning of a creative journey.

Basic collections.

So, when Fet at the end of 1837, by the decision of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, Fet left the Krummer boarding house, he went to Moscow to prepare for admission to Moscow University. Before Fet entered the university, he lived and studied at Pogodin’s private boarding school for six months. Fet distinguished himself while studying at the boarding school and distinguished himself when entering the university. Initially, Fet entered the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, but soon changed his mind and switched to the literature department.

Fet's serious study of poetry begins in his first year. He writes down his poems in a specially created “yellow notebook.” Soon the number of poems written reaches three dozen. Fet decides to show the notebook to Pogodin. Pogodin hands the notebook to Gogol. And a week later, Fet receives the notebook back from Pogodin with the words: “Gogol said, this is an undoubted talent.”

Fet's fate is not only bitter and tragic, but also happy. Happy in the fact that the great Pushkin was the first to reveal to him the joy of poetry, and the great Gogol blessed him to serve her. Fet's fellow students were interested in the poems. And at this time Fet met Apollo Grigoriev. Fet's closeness with A. Grigoriev became increasingly closer and soon turned into friendship. As a result, Fet moves from Pogodin’s house to Grigoriev’s house. Fet later admitted: “The Grigorievs’ house was the true cradle of my mental self.” Fet and A. Grigoriev constantly, interestedly and emotionally communicated with each other.

They supported each other even in difficult moments of life. Grigoriev Fet, - when Fet especially acutely felt rejection, social and human restlessness. Fet Grigoriev - in those hours when his love was rejected, and he was ready to flee from Moscow to Siberia.

The Grigorievs' house became a gathering place for talented university youth. Students of the literature and law faculties visited here: Ya. P. Polonsky, S. M. Solovyov, the son of the Decembrist N. M. Orlov, P. M. Boklevsky, N. K. Kalaidovich. Around A. Grigoriev and Fet, not just a friendly company of interlocutors is formed, but a kind of literary and philosophical circle.

While at the university, Fet published the first collection of his poems. It is called somewhat intricately: “Lyrical Pantheon”. Apollon Grigoriev helped in publishing the collection of activities. The collection turned out to be unprofitable. The release of “Lyrical Pantheon” did not bring Fet positive satisfaction and joy, but, nevertheless, noticeably inspired him. He began to write poetry more and more energetically than before. And not only write, but also publish. It is readily published by the two largest magazines, “Moskvityanin” and “Otechestvennye zapiski.” Moreover, some of Fet’s poems are included in the then-known “Chrestomathy” by A.D. Galakhov, the first edition of which was published in 1843.

Fet began publishing in Moskvityanin at the end of 1841. The editors of this journal were professors from Moscow University - M. P. Pogodin and S. P. Shevyrev. From mid-1842, Fet began publishing in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, whose leading critic was the great Belinsky. Over the course of several years, from 1841 to 1845, Fet published 85 poems in these magazines, including the textbook poem “I came to you with greetings...”.

The first misfortune that befell Fet is connected with his mother. The thought of her evoked tenderness and pain in him. In November 1844, her death occurred. Although there was nothing unexpected in the death of his mother, the news of this shocked Fet. At the same time, in the fall of 1844, Uncle Fet, brother of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, Pyotr Neofitovich, suddenly died. He promised to leave Fet his capital. Now he has died, and his money has mysteriously disappeared. This was another shock.

And he begins to have financial problems. He decides to sacrifice his literary activities and enter military service. In this he sees for himself the only practical and worthy way out. Service in the army allows him to return to the social position in which he was before receiving that ill-fated letter from his father and which he considered to be his, rightfully his.

To this it should be added that military service was not disgusting to Fet. On the contrary, once in childhood he even dreamed about her.

Fet's first collection was published in 1840 and was called “Lyrical Pantheon”, it was published with only the author’s initials “A. F." It is interesting that in the same year, Nekrasov’s first collection of poems, “Dreams and Sounds,” was published. The simultaneous release of both collections involuntarily suggests a comparison between them, and they are often compared. At the same time, a commonality is revealed in the fate of the collections. It is emphasized that both Fet and Nekrasov failed in their poetic debut, that both of them did not immediately find their path, their unique “I”.

But unlike Nekrasov, who was forced to buy up the collection and destroy it, Fet did not suffer any obvious failure. His collection was both criticized and praised. The collection, as mentioned above, turned out to be unprofitable (since Fet did not even manage to return the money he spent on printing. “The Lyrical Pantheon” is in many ways still a student’s book. The influence of a variety of poets is noticeable in it (Byron, Goethe, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Venevitinov, Lermontov, Schiller and contemporary Fet Benediktov).

As a critic of Otechestvennye Zapiski noted, an unearthly, noble simplicity and “grace” were visible in the poems in the collection. The musicality of the verse was also noted - a quality that would be highly characteristic of the mature Fet. In the collection, the greatest preference was given to two genres: the ballad, so beloved by romantics (“Abduction from a Harem,” “Castle Raufenbach,” etc.), and the genre of anthological poems.

At the end of September 1847, he received leave and went to Moscow. Here, for two months, he diligently works on his new collection: he compiles it, rewrites it, submits it to the censor, and even receives censorship permission for publication. Meanwhile, vacation time is running out. He never managed to publish the collection - he had to return to the Kherson province to serve.

Fet was able to come to Moscow again only in December 1849. It was then that he completed the work he started two years ago. Now he does everything in a hurry, remembering his experience two years ago. At the beginning of 1850, the collection was published. The haste affected the quality of the publication: there are many typos and dark places. Nevertheless, the book was a success. Positive reviews about her appeared in Sovremennik, in Otechestvennye zapiski, in Moskvityanin, that is, in the leading magazines of that time. It was also a success among the readership. The entire circulation of the book sold out within five years. This is not such a long time, especially when compared with the fate of the first collection. This was affected by Fet’s increased fame, based on his numerous publications in the early 40s, and by the new wave of poetry that was celebrated in Russia in those years.

In 1856, Fet published another collection, which was preceded by the publication of 1850, which included 182 poems. On the advice of Turgenev, 95 poems were transferred to the new edition, of which only 27 were left in their original form. 68 poems were subject to major or partial editing. But let's return to the 1856 collection. In literary circles, among poetry connoisseurs, he was a great success. The famous critic A.V. Druzhinin responded with a thorough article to the new collection. In the article, Druzhinin not only admired Fet’s poems, but also subjected them to a deep analysis. Druzhinin especially emphasizes the musicality of Fetov’s verse.

In the last period of his life, a collection of his original poems, “Evening Lights,” was published. Published in Moscow, in four issues. The fifth was prepared by Fet, but he did not have time to publish it. The first collection was published in 1883, the second in 1885, the third in 1889, the fourth in 1891, a year before his death.

“Evening Lights” is the main title of Fet’s collections. Their second title is “Collected Unpublished Poems by Fet.” “Evening Lights,” with rare exceptions, included poems that had not yet been published until that time. Mainly those that Fet wrote after 1863. There was simply no need to reprint works created earlier and included in the collections of 1863: the collection never sold out, anyone could buy this book. The greatest assistance during the publication was provided by N. N. Strakhov and V. S. Solovyov. So, during the preparation of the third issue of “Evening Lights”, in July 1887, both friends came to Vorobyovka.

The main ideas of A.A. Fet's lyrics.

Image of landscape in Fet's work.

Open your arms to me,

Dense, spreading forest!

The realism movement in Russian art of the 19th century was so powerful that all outstanding artists experienced its influence in their work. In the poetry of A. A. Fet, this influence of realism was especially evident in poems about nature.

Fet is one of the most remarkable Russian landscape poets.

In his poems, the Russian spring appears in all its beauty - with blooming trees, the first flowers, with cranes calling in the steppe. It seems to me that the image of cranes, so beloved by many Russian poets, was first depicted by Fet.

In Fet's poetry, nature is depicted in detail. In this regard, he is an innovator. Before Fet, generalization reigned in Russian poetry addressed to nature. In Fet’s poems we meet not only traditional birds with the usual poetic aura - like the nightingale, swan, lark, eagle, but also such seemingly simple and unpoetic ones as the owl, harrier, lapwing, and swift. For example:

And I hear in the dewy voice

It is significant that here we are dealing with an author who distinguishes birds by their voice and, moreover, notices where this bird is located. This, of course, is not just a consequence of a good knowledge of nature, but the poet’s love for it, long-standing and thorough.

Apparently, when working on poetry about nature, the author must have extraordinary taste. Because otherwise, he immediately risks falling into imitation of folk poetry, which is replete with such options.

S. Ya. Marshak is right in his admiration for the freshness and spontaneity of Fetov’s perception of nature: “His poems entered Russian nature, became its integral part, wonderful lines about spring rain, the flight of a butterfly, soulful landscapes.”

In my opinion, Marshak accurately noticed one more feature of Fet’s poetry: “His nature is as if on the first day of creation, a thicket of trees, a light ribbon of a river, a nightingale’s peace, a sweetly murmuring spring... If annoying modernity sometimes invades this closed world, then it immediately loses its practical meaning and acquires a decorative character."

As an important facet of Feta as a landscape painter, I would like to note his impressionism. The impressionist does not shy away from the outside world; he vigilantly peers into it, depicting it as it appears to his immediate eye. The impressionist is not interested in the subject, but in the impression:

Only you alone glide along the azure paths

Everything around is motionless...

Let the night pour in its bottomless urn

Myriads of stars are coming to us.

It is clear to the reader that the external world is depicted here in the form that the poet’s mood gave it. Despite all the specificity of the description of details, nature still seems to dissolve in Fet’s lyrical feeling.

Analysis of poems by A.A. Fet.

Poem “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve...”

Afanasy Fet - poet of “eternal values” and “absolute beauty”, founder of new poetic genres - songs and lyrical miniatures - was a representative of a galaxy of poets who in their work abandoned reality and sang only eternal themes

The lyrical hero in Fet's poetry is the image of the hero whose experiences, thoughts and feelings are reflected in the work. His character depends on the poet’s worldview.

It seems to me that this poetic calm compensated for the author’s real life, full of contradictions. Turgenev also contrasted Fet, the “great poet,” with the landowner and publicist Shishkin, “an inveterate and frenzied serf owner, a conservative and a lieutenant of the old school.”

Perhaps this is why we perceive with such sensitivity the “lyrical audacity” of the author of the poem “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.”

So what was this audacity expressed in?

As in most of his other works, the author paints a seemingly motionless picture for the readers, capturing its momentary state. This is all the same, passing from one poem to another, Fet’s desire to convey the beauty of the moment, to capture it in his poems. How is a beautiful image created?

The first two lines of each stanza are nominal sentences and sentences with homogeneous members. This allows the reader to see the picture painted and admire its unique beauty. The last two lines are an emotional response to what he saw. The mood of the lyrical hero is in tune with the state of nature. That is why musical means of influencing the reader play such an important role in the poem: rhythm, onomatopoeia, verse-by-verse design. Wind is a semantic dynamic in the first part of the poem, therefore alliteration is justified (an abundance of hissing and whistling sounds conveying the movement of the wind - “Everything hums and sways” // “Leaves are spinning at your feet”). And dactyl is this special song rhythm of a verse, unusually combining long and short lines and stress at the end of every second line:

Alone in the forest

I can `t get it;

Leaves are spinning at your feet

Subtly calling horn,

Dead sheets for me

You greet me tenderly!

It is impossible to accurately determine the mood that the picture evokes. The sensations are vague, hence the verb “I don’t understand,” which is often found in other poems of the poet. The state itself is contradictory: “noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun.” The hero seems to dissolve in the world of nature, plunges into its mysterious depths, tries to understand the beautiful soul of nature.” The confusion that arises in the noise of the wind dissipates in the second part of the poem to the sounds of human presence, “a subtly calling horn,” “the call of the copper herald.” The mood of the lyrical hero also changes - two exclamatory sentences (“sweet is the call of the copper herald to me!” and “Dead sheets to me!”) testify to this. And inversion (“unexpectedly heard”, “poor wanderer”) helps to draw attention to the words that, in the author’s opinion, carry the greatest semantic load.

The metaphor “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve” tells that the lyrical hero humanizes nature, sees its beautiful soul, and we understand how the spruce with its mother’s hand touched the strings of the author’s soul, and the feeling of purification, the joy of being, spiritual trepidation and excitement is conveyed from the book pages. Thus, in Fet’s poem the world of nature and human emotions merge, creating a unique phenomenon of Russian poetry. The author, depicting his hero at the moment of greatest emotional stress, shows the work of the human soul against the backdrop of a beautiful moment of nature, which makes us think once again that man is a grain of sand in the ocean called the “Universe”.

Poem “Still fragrant bliss of spring...”

Afanasy Fet's lyrics are filled with feelings. The poet believed that the main goal of creativity is to glorify the beauty of this world, nature, and love. Trembling, delight, tenderness, and piercing tenderness are heard in his poem “Even more fragrant bliss of spring...”. The soulful lyricism of this work captivated me. How does the poet manage to express his emotions?

Let's look at the poem. Before us is a monologue of a lyrical hero, a romantic, dreamy person who is in love with nature, probably of his native land. He awaits spring with excitement, dreams about it as if about a miracle:

More fragrant spring bliss

She didn’t have time to come down to us...

Spring is an elegant, thin, fragile, light creation.

This is what I think the metaphor reveals to us in the first lines. The aroma adds richness to the sensual image of spring. The author manages to show this with the help of the epithet “fragrant”.

The hero’s wishes will certainly come true, because even the negations in this poem (“didn’t have time”, “doesn’t dare”), I think, on the contrary, affirm spring, the legitimacy of its grace-filled arrival, which is about to feed the pasture, there is very little left.

The final stanza of the work opens with a deep philosophical thought, which is contained in a metaphor:

But the news of rebirth is alive

Already there are in the migratory cranes...

Nature awakens from its winter sleep and the birds return. They are the joyful messengers of spring, bringing it on their wings. The murmur of cranes also enlivens everything around, so they can rightfully be called symbols of the rebirth of nature.

And, following them with my eyes,

The beauty of the steppe is standing

With a bluish blush on her cheeks.

In the last lines of the work, a lyrical character unexpectedly appears before us - the “steppe beauty.” I think this image is not accidental. He is a reflection of spring. Interestingly, the “beauty” has a “gray-gray” blush, and not pink or red. Why? This is probably again a feature of the impressionistic style. Fet depicted, recorded, as it were, not the color of the cheeks itself, but his impression, instantaneous, changeable, that this detail made on him. The blush could become “blue,” for example, under the influence of bright sunlight.

So gradually the full picture appears before us. The main idea of ​​the poem is a premonition of spring. The lyrical hero seems to dissolve in nature, fascinated by the upcoming renewal of the world, which at the same time is already taking place before his eyes. This simultaneity of what is happening, inconsistency, constant movement, development create an extraordinary, special sensory space that reveals the human soul.

Here, as in many other works, Fet appears as a bold innovator who understands the world intuitively.

Poem “The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. They were lying..."

Poem “The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. They were lying..." - one of the lyrical masterpieces of A.A. Feta. Created on August 2, 1877, it was inspired by the singing of T.A. Kuzminskaya (sister of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy), who described this episode in her memoirs. The work opens a whole cycle of poems in the collection “Evening Lights,” which Fet called “Melodies.” Of course, this is not accidental. The poem is really written in a romance-song vein, unusually musical. The poet believed that beauty - the main idea of ​​lyricism - is expressed not in lines, not in refined words, but above all, “sounds subtle.” This means that one of the most important characteristics of poetry should be melody. The musicality of this work is achieved through repetitions at different levels of the poetic text. Fet compares words that are similar in sound composition - “sonorous sighs” - giving the poem additional semantic and emotional “overtones”.

The composition of the poem also contributes to its melody. In this lyrical monologue, the author uses the ring technique. In the line “Love you, hug you and cry over you,” which frames the work, Fet expresses the main feelings of the hero: delight and admiration for the power of vocal art.

Of course, the musicality of the poem is dictated by its theme. After all, this work is not only about love and nature, it is, first of all, about wonderful singing, about a voice that gives rise to many vivid experiences:

The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. were lying

Rays at our feet in a living room without lights.

The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling,

Just like our hearts follow your song.

You sang until dawn, exhausted in tears,

That you alone are love, that there is no other love,

And I wanted to live so much, so that without making a sound,

To love you, hug you and cry over you.

Fet does not depict a specific landscape or interior, but everything comes together in perfect harmony. The poet creates a holistic, dynamic picture in which visual, auditory, tactile, and sensory impressions are immediately presented. Generalization and combination of images of nature, love, music help the poet express the fullness of the joy of perceiving life.

The poem is autobiographical. His lyrical hero is Fet himself. This work tells how the poet experiences two meetings with his beloved, between which there is a long separation. But Fet does not paint a single stroke of the portrait of the woman he loves, does not trace all the changes in their relationship and his condition. He captures only the trembling feeling that covers him under the impression of her singing:

And many tedious and boring years have passed,

And it blows, as then, in these sonorous sighs,

That you are alone - all life, that you are alone - love.

The feeling itself is also difficult to describe in words. The lyrical hero conveys the uniqueness, depth and complexity of his experiences with the help of “global” metaphors in the last line.

This poem once again convinces us that only art can truly ennoble a person, cleanse the soul, liberate and enrich it. Enjoying a beautiful work, be it music, painting, poetry, we forget about all our problems and failures, and are distracted from the bustle of everyday life. The human soul completely opens up to beauty, dissolves in it and thus gains strength to live on; believe, hope, love. Fet writes about this in the last stanza. The singer’s magical voice frees the lyrical hero from “the grievances of fate and the burning torment of the heart,” presenting new horizons:

But there is no end to life, and there is no other goal,

As soon as you believe in the sobbing sounds,

Love you, hug you and cry over you!

Speaking about the lyrical character of the poem, the author involuntarily touched upon the theme of the creator and his mission. The singer's voice, which awakens a whole range of feelings in the hero, sounds so delightful because the heroine devotes herself passionately to her occupation and is herself fascinated by the magic of music. At the moment of performing the song, it must seem to her that there is nothing more important in the world than these beautiful sounds, than the feelings invested in the work. To forget about everything except creativity is the part of a true creator: a poet, an artist, a musician. This is also mentioned in the work.

Poem “The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. They lay..." amazes with its variety of themes, depth and brightness of images, extraordinary melody, as well as its idea, which, in my opinion, lies in the author’s amazing desire to convey the beauty of art and the world in an all-encompassing way.

Conclusion.

Fet's work marks not only the completion, but also the decomposition of the noble-estate poetry of the new classicism. Already in the poems of young Fet, other tendencies are growing. Fet moves from clear plasticity to gentle watercolors, the “flesh” of the world Fet glorifies becomes more and more ephemeral; his poetry is now directed not so much at an objectively given external object, but at flickering, vague sensations and the elusive, melting emotions excited by them; it becomes poetry of intimate mental states, germs and reflections of feelings; it “grabs on the fly and suddenly fixes / And the dark delirium of the soul, and the unclear smell of herbs,” becomes the poetry of the unconscious, reproduces dreams, dreams, fantasies; The motif of the inexpressibility of experience resounds persistently in it. Poetry consolidates an instant impulse of living feeling; the homogeneity of experience is disrupted, combinations of opposites appear, although harmoniously reconciled (“suffering of bliss,” “joy of suffering,” etc.). Poems take on the character of improvisation. Syntax, reflecting the development of experience, often contradicts grammatical and logical norms; the verse acquires a special suggestiveness, melodiousness, and the musicality of “trembling melodies.” It is less and less saturated with material images, which become only fulcrum points when emotions are revealed. In this case, mental states are revealed, not processes; For the first time in Russian poetry, Fet introduces verbless poems ("Whisper", "Storm", etc.). The motifs characteristic of this line of F.'s poetry are impressions of nature in the fullness of sensations (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.), love longing, nascent, yet unexpressed love. This stream of Fet's poetry, continuing the line of Zhukovsky and moving him away from Maikov and Shcherbina, makes him the forerunner of impressionism in Russian poetry (having a particularly strong influence on Balmont). To a certain extent, Fet turns out to be in tune with Turgenev.

Towards the end of Fet's life, his lyrics became more and more philosophical, more and more imbued with metaphysical idealism. Fet now constantly sounds the motif of the unity of the human and world spirit, the merging of the “I” with the world, the presence of “everything” in “one,” the universal in the individual. Love has turned into a priestly service of eternal femininity, absolute beauty, uniting and reconciling two worlds. Nature appears as a cosmic landscape. Real reality, the changing world of movement and activity, socio-historical life with its processes hostile to the poet, the “noisy bazaar,” appears as a “fleeting dream,” like a ghost, like Schopenhauer’s “world-representation.” But this is not a dream of individual consciousness, it is a “worldwide dream,” “the same dream of life in which we are all immersed” (Fet’s epigraph from Schopenhauer). The highest reality and value are transferred to the resting world of eternal ideas, unchanging metaphysical essences. One of Fet’s main themes is a breakthrough into another world, flight, and the image of wings. The moment being captured now is the moment of intuitive comprehension by the poet-prophet of the world of entities. In Fet's poetry a shade of pessimism appears in relation to earthly life; his acceptance of the world is now not a direct enjoyment of the festive rejoicing of the “earthly”, “carnal” life of the eternally young world, but a philosophical reconciliation with the end, with death as a return to eternity. As the soil slipped away from under the estate-patriarchal world, the material, concrete, real slipped away from Fet’s poetry, and the center of gravity shifted to the “ideal”, “spiritual”. From the aesthetics of the beautiful, Fet comes to the aesthetics of the sublime.

Fet's work is associated with the world of the estate and nobility, he is characterized by a narrow outlook, indifference to the social evil of his time, but there are no direct reactionary tendencies characteristic of Fet the publicist (except for a few poems on occasion). Fet's life-affirming lyrics captivate with their sincerity and freshness, radically different from the artificial, decadent lyrics of the impressionists and symbolists. The best of Fet's legacy is the lyrics of love and nature, subtle and noble human feelings, embodied in an exceptionally rich and musical poetic form.

Bibliography.

1. Aksakov I.S. Biography of A.A. Fet - M., 2005.

2. Belinsky V.G. Full collection op. and letters in 13 vols. T. VII. M., 2004. S. 307, 322.

3. Blagoy D., The world as beauty. About “Evening Lights” by A. Fet, M., 2006.

4. Bukhshtab B.Ya., A.A. Fet. Essay on life and creativity - St. Petersburg, 2007.

5. History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Bibliographic index, M. 2004.

Fet. Works.-M., 1982 3. Kozhinov Vadim. ...

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820 - 1892) - famous Russian poet with German roots, translator, lyricist, author of memoirs. Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.

• early years
• Education
• The poet's work
• last years of life
• Biography test

early years

The future poet was born on November 23 (December 5, new style) 1820 in the village. Novoselki, Mtsensk district, Oryol province (Russian Empire).

As the son of Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker, who left Germany in 1820, Afanasy was adopted by the nobleman Shenshin. After 14 years, an unpleasant event occurred in the biography of Afanasy Fet: an error was discovered in the birth record, which deprived him of his title.

Education

In 1837, Fet graduated from Krümmer's private boarding school in the city of Verro (now Estonia). In 1838 he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow University, continuing to be interested in literature. He graduated from the university in 1844.

The poet's work

In Fet’s brief biography, it is worth noting that his first poems were written in his youth. Fet's poetry was first published in the collection "Lyrical Pantheon" in 1840. Since then, Fet's poems have been constantly published in magazines.

Trying in every possible way to regain his title of nobility, Afanasy Fet went to serve as a non-commissioned officer. Then, in 1853, Fet’s life involved a transition to the Guards Regiment. Fet's creativity, even in those times, does not stand still. His second collection was published in 1850, and his third in 1856.

In 1857, the poet married Maria Botkina. Having retired in 1858, without having achieved the return of the title, he acquired land and devoted himself to farming.

Fet's new works, published from 1862 to 1871, comprise the cycles “From the Village” and “Notes on Free Labor.” They include short stories, short stories, and essays. Afanasy Afanasievich Fet strictly distinguishes between his prose and poetry. For him, poetry is romantic, and prose is realistic.

Nikolay Nekrasov wrote about Fet: “A man who understands poetry and willingly opens his soul to its sensations, not a single Russian author, afterPushkin , will not gain as much poetic pleasure as Mr. Fet will give him.”

last years of life

In 1873, Afanasy Fet was returned to the title, as well as the surname Shenshin. After this, the poet engages in charity work. At this stage, Afanasy Fet’s poems were published in the collections “Evening Lights”, of which four issues were published from 1883 to 1891. Fet's poetry contains mainly two themes: nature, love.

Death overtook the poet on November 21, 1892 in Moscow in his house on Plyushchikha. Fet died of a heart attack. Afanasy Afanasyevich was buried in the Shenshin family estate in the village. Kleymenovo, Oryol province.

Interesting Facts

• In addition to writing poems, Fet was engaged in translations until his old age. He owns translations of both parts of Goethe's Faust. He even planned to translate the bookImmanuel Kant "Critique of Pure Reason", but abandoned this idea and took up the translation of worksArthur Schopenhauer .
• The poet experienced a tragic love for Maria Lazic, a fan of his work. This girl was educated and very talented. Their feelings were mutual, but the couple failed to link their destinies. Maria died, and the poet remembered his unhappy love all his life, which influenced his work. It was to her that he dedicated the poem “The Talisman”, the poems “Old Letters”, “You suffered, I still suffer...”, “No, I haven’t changed. Until deep old age..." and other poems.
• Some researchers of Fet's life believe that the poet's death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt.
• It was Fet who authored the famous phrase that was included in “The Adventures of Pinocchio”A. N. Tolstoy - “And the rose fell on Azor’s paw.”

Once upon a time, to the question in the questionnaire of Leo Tolstoy’s daughter Tatyana, “How long would you like to live?” Fet replied: “Least long.” And yet the writer had a long and very eventful life - he not only wrote many lyrical works, critical articles and memoirs, but also devoted entire years to agriculture, and apple marshmallows from his estate were even supplied to the imperial table.

Non-hereditary nobleman: the childhood and youth of Afanasy Fet

Afanasy Fet in childhood. Photo: pitzmann.ru

Afanasy Fet was born in 1820 in the village of Novoselki near the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province. Until the age of 14, he bore the surname of his father, the wealthy landowner Afanasy Shenshin. As it turned out later, Shenshin’s marriage to Charlotte Fet was illegal in Russia, since they got married only after the birth of their son, which the Orthodox Church categorically did not accept. Because of this, the young man was deprived of the privileges of a hereditary nobleman. He began to bear the surname of his mother’s first husband, Johann Fet.

Afanasy was educated at home. Basically, he was taught literacy and the alphabet not by professional teachers, but by valets, cooks, servants, and seminarians. But Fet absorbed most of his knowledge from the surrounding nature, peasant way of life and rural life. He loved to talk for a long time with the maids, who shared news, told tales and legends.

At the age of 14, the boy was sent to the German boarding school Krümmer in the Estonian city of Võru. It was there that he fell in love with the poetry of Alexander Pushkin. In 1837, young Fet came to Moscow, where he continued his studies at the boarding school of professor of world history Mikhail Pogodin.

In quiet moments of complete carefreeness, I seemed to feel the underwater rotation of floral spirals, trying to bring the flower to the surface; but in the end it turned out that only spirals of stems, on which there were no flowers, were rushing out. I drew some poems on my slate board and erased them again, finding them meaningless.

From the memoirs of Afanasy Fet

In 1838, Fet entered the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, but soon switched to the Faculty of History and Philology. From his first year, he wrote poetry that interested his classmates. The young man decided to show them to Professor Pogodin, and he - to the writer Nikolai Gogol. Soon Pogodin conveyed the review of the famous classic: “Gogol said this is an undoubted talent”. Fet's works were also approved by his friends - the translator Irinarch Vvedensky and the poet Apollon Grigoriev, to whom Fet moved from Pogodin's house. He recalled that “the Grigorievs’ house was the true cradle of my mental self.” The two poets supported each other in creativity and life.

In 1840, Fet’s first collection of poems, “Lyrical Pantheon,” was published. It was published under the initials "A. F." It included ballads and elegies, idylls and epitaphs. The collection was liked by critics: Vissarion Belinsky, Pyotr Kudryavtsev and the poet Evgeny Baratynsky. A year later, Fet’s poems were regularly published by Pogodin’s magazine Moskvityanin, and later by the magazine Otechestvennye zapiski. In the latter, 85 Fetov poems were published in a year.

The idea of ​​returning his noble title did not leave Afanasy Fet, and he decided to enter military service: the officer rank gave the right to hereditary nobility. In 1845, he was accepted as a non-commissioned officer into the Order Cuirassier Regiment in the Chersonesos province. A year later, Fet was promoted to cornet.

Famous metropolitan author and “agronomist-owner to the point of despair”

Friedrich Mobius. Portrait of Maria Fet (fragment). 1858. State Literary Museum, Moscow

In 1850, having bypassed all censorship committees, Fet published a second collection of poems, which was praised on the pages of major Russian magazines. By this time he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant and stationed closer to the capital. In the Baltic port, Afanasy Fet took part in the Crimean campaign, whose troops guarded the Estonian coast.

In the last years of his life, Fet received public recognition. In 1884, for translating the works of Horace, he became the first laureate of the full Pushkin Prize of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Two years later, the poet was elected its corresponding member. In 1888, Afanasy Fet was personally introduced to Emperor Alexander III and awarded the court rank of chamberlain.

While still in Stepanovka, Fet began writing the book “My Memories,” where he talked about his life as a landowner. The memoirs cover the period from 1848 to 1889. The book was published in two volumes in 1890.

On December 3, 1892, Fet asked his wife to call the doctor, and in the meantime dictated to his secretary: “I don’t understand the deliberate magnification of inevitable suffering. I voluntarily go towards the inevitable" and signed "Fet (Shenshin)". The writer died of a heart attack, but it is known that he first tried to commit suicide by rushing for a steel stiletto. Afanasy Fet was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the family estate of the Shenshins.

It was a shame for me to see how indifferently the sad news was greeted even by those whom it should have touched most. How selfish we all are! He was a strong man, he fought all his life and achieved everything he wanted: he won a name, wealth, literary celebrity and a place in high society, even at court. He appreciated all this and enjoyed it all, but I am sure that the most precious things in the world to him were his poems and that he knew that their charm was incomparable, the very heights of poetry. The further you go, the more others will understand this.

From a letter from Nikolai Strakhov to Sofia Tolstoy, 1892

After the writer’s death, in 1893, the last volume of his memoirs, “The Early Years of My Life,” was published. Fet also did not have time to release the volume concluding the cycle of poems “Evening Lights”. The works for this poetic book were included in the two-volume “Lyrical Poems”, which was published in 1894 by Nikolai Strakhov and Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (lived 1820 - 1892) - this name is known to any schoolchild. Let's look at the most important thing in Fet's biography: his family, creativity, Fet's biography. Brief biography, for primary school students. The poet's life was very eventful events, and Fet’s biography is briefly presented in a concise form with difficulty, since I want to tell many interesting facts about Fet.

Everyone without exception learns the famous poem in school and remembers it all their lives:

• Again the birds are flying from afar
• To the shores that break the ice,
• The warm sun goes high
• And the fragrant lily of the valley awaits.
• Again, nothing can calm your heart
• Up to the cheeks of the rising blood,
• And with a bribed soul you believe,
• That, like the world, love is endless.
• But will we get so close again?
• We are in the midst of tender nature,
• As seen walking low
• Us the cold sun of winter?

Family

Afanasy was born in 1820 in the Oryol region (formerly Oryol province) in the famous Mtsensk district. His mother Charlotte-Elisabeth Becker was a German citizen. Sh.-E. Becker was married to a German a poor servant of the city court with the unforgettable long German name Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Föth. Has Fet with “ё”. Johann Vöth divorced Becker, then remarried and died in 1826. After his death, he did not leave any inheritance to his ex-wife and son.

On the eve of the divorce in 1820, a Russian landowner of noble origin, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, arrived in Darmstad. Elizaveta Becker meets him. They fall in love with each other. Elizabeth by that time was pregnant with her second child. Shenshin secretly takes his future wife to Russia. They got married only in 1822, when the boy was already 2 years old. The boy was baptized and named Afanasy Afanasyevich Shenshin in the world. At birth, the boy was recorded as the blood-born son of the parent A.N. Shenshin.

Previously, a legitimate child could have been born in wedlock. Since the marriage took place two years after the birth of the future poet, it was difficult to recognize him as a blood son. It is believed that this was done for a bribe.

When the boy turned 14 years old, fate played a cruel joke on him. The secret of his birth surfaced in the church chancellery; it turned out that a mistake had been made, that he was not the natural son of the nobleman Shenshin, and therefore could not have a noble title. Afanasy Neofitovich was recognized as Fet's stepfather. An official church message was issued about this.

Married Shenshina and Becker had several children together. K.P. Matveeva is Fet’s older sister. Born in 1819. All other brothers and sisters were born into the Shenshin family:

• L.A. Shenshin in 1824;
• V.A. Shenshin in 1827;
• ON THE. Borisov in 1832;
• P.A. Shenshin in 1834

There were children who died at an early age - Anna, Vasily and perhaps another Anna. Infant mortality was very high even in wealthy families.

It is interesting to know: the poet, the life and work of the writer.

Education

Fet initially studied at the Krummer boarding school in Estonia, where he received an excellent upbringing. Further, in 1838 he entered Moscow State University and studied at the philosophical and philological department of literature. Here he is passionate about literature and languages. He graduated from the university in 1844. The first publications of poems were made in senior years at the university.

Creation

Fet began writing his first poems at a young age. Afanasy Afanasyevich was a lyricist from God. He sensually put nature, love and art into poetic forms. With all this, the poet’s lyrical nature did not interfere, but rather, on the contrary, helped him to be an enterprising good landowner with a “commercial streak.”

The first official publications of the poems were made in the magazine "Lyrical Pantheon" in 1840. The first collection of poems was published in 1850, and then they were published regularly. He became any poet of our time and was published in various publications.

Fet was always depressed by the circumstance, according to which he was deprived of his noble title. He was very eager to regain this title and in 1853 he entered service in the Guards regiment. Unfortunately, the service did not bear fruit. In 1858, he resigned, still remaining untitled.

A year earlier he married Maria Botkina . For accumulated capital they buy arable land. Fet becomes a passionate farmer: he grows crops, raises livestock, takes care of bees, and even digs a pond where he raises fish. The estate was called Stepanovka. After a few years, the estate begins to generate good income - up to 5-6 thousand per year. This is a lot of money. In 1877, he sold the estate and bought another - Vorobyovka in the Kursk province. It was an old estate with a beautiful manor house on the river bank and a huge century-old garden.

From 1862 to 1871, along with poetry, Fet was captivated by prose. These are two completely different literary trends of his work. If Fet's poetry is very lyrical, then the prose is called realistic. These are stories, essays about village hard work. Among the well-known are “Notes on civilian labor”, “From the village” and others.

Fet had many fans. One of them is Maria Lazic. They had tender feelings for each other, but were unable to cross their destinies. She died. Many of the best love poems are dedicated to Mary: “The Talisman”, “You have suffered, I still suffer...” and others.

Afanasy Afanasyevich, knew several languages ​​and translated many works of famous writers:

• "Faust" by Goethe;
• Translations of ancient writers - Horace, Virgil, Ovid and many others.

Fet wanted to translate E. Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” but he began translating Schopenhauer; he also dreamed of translating the Bible.