Fet, Afanasy Afanasyevich. The poet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet died When Fet was born and he died

Square

Many schoolchildren have difficulty distinguishing Fet’s poetry from Tyutchev’s creations - this is undoubtedly the fault of the teacher, who failed to correctly present the masterpieces of two meters of Russian literature. I assure you, after this article about interesting facts from the life of Fet, you will immediately learn to distinguish the poetics of Afanasy Afanasyevich from the work of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, I will try to be very brief!

In Tyutchev’s poetry, the world is presented as cosmic, even the forces of nature come to life and become natural spirits surrounding man. The motifs in Fet's work are closer to reality (down to earth). Before us is a description of real landscapes, images of real people, Fet’s love - the same complex feeling, but earthly and accessible.

The secret of the poet's surname

As a child, A. Fet experienced a shock - he was deprived of his noble title and his father's surname. The writer's real name is Shenshin, his father is a retired Russian captain, and his mother is the German beauty Charlotte Feth. The parents met in Germany, where they immediately began a whirlwind romance. Charlotte was married, but completely unhappy in her marriage; her husband loved to drink and often raised his hand to her. Having met a noble Russian military man, she fell desperately in love with him, and even maternal feelings did not prevent the reunification of two hearts - Charlotte had a daughter. Already in the seventh month of pregnancy, Charlotte escapes to Russia to Afanasy Shenshin. Later, Shenshin will write a letter to Charlotte’s husband, but in response he will receive an obscene telegram. After all, the lovers committed an unchristian act.

The future poet was born in the Oryol province, and was recorded in the registry register by Afanasy Shenshin. Charlotte and Shenshin got married only two years after the birth of their son. At the age of 14, Afanasy was declared illegitimate, his surname Fet was returned to him and he was called a “foreigner.” As a result, the boy loses his noble origin and the inheritance of the landowner's father. Later he will regain his rights, but after many, many years.

Fet and Tolstoy

In Lotman's works there is a mention of one unusual incident from the lives of two great writers. In those days, everyone played card games, especially loved to gamble (but not about that now). So, the process of the games was quite emotional; in a rush, the players tore and threw the cards on the floor, and the money fell with them. But raising this money was considered indecent; it remained on the floor until the end of the game, and then the lackeys took it away in the form of tips.

One day, socialites (including Fet and Tolstoy) were playing a card game, and Fet bent down to pick up a fallen banknote. Everyone felt a little strange, but not Tolstoy; the writer leaned over to his friend to illuminate it with a candle. There is nothing shameful in this act, because Fet played with his last money, unlike his rivals.

Fet also wrote prose

In the 60s of the 19th century, Fet began working on prose; as a result, two prose collections were published, consisting of essays and short stories-sketches.

“We must not be separated” - a story of unhappy love

The poet met Maria Lazich at a ball in the house of the famous officer Petkovich (this happened in 1848, when the sun was mercilessly scorching on the border of the Kyiv and Kherson provinces). Maria Lazic was charming - tall, slender, dark, with a mop of dark thick hair. Fet immediately realized that Maria was like Beatrice for Dante. Then Fet was 28 years old, and Maria was 24 years old, she had full responsibility for the house and younger sisters, because she was the daughter of a poor Serbian general. Since then, all the writer’s love lyrics have been dedicated to this beautiful young lady.

According to contemporaries, Mary was not distinguished by incomparable beauty, but she was pleasant and seductive. So Afanasy and Maria began to communicate, write letters to each other, and spend joint evenings discussing art. But one day, while leafing through her diary (at that time all the girls had diaries in which they copied their favorite poems, quotes, and attached photographs), Fet noticed the musical notes under which there was a signature - Franz Liszt. Ferenc, a famous composer of that time, who toured Russia in the 40s, met Maria and even dedicated a piece of music to her. At first Fet was upset and jealousy washed over him, but then when he heard how great the melody sounded for Maria, he asked to play it constantly.

But a marriage between Athanasius and Maria was impossible, he has no means of subsistence and no title, and Maria, although from a poor family, is from a noble family. Lazic’s relatives did not know about this and did not understand at all why Fet had been communicating with their daughter for two years, but did not propose. Naturally, rumors and speculation spread throughout the city about Fet himself and Maria’s immorality. Then Afanasy told his beloved that their marriage was impossible, and the relationship needed to be ended urgently. Maria asked Afanasy to just be there without marriage or money.

But in the spring of 1850 something terrible happened. In despair, Maria sat in her room, trying to gather her thoughts on how to live further, how to achieve an eternal and indestructible union with her beloved. Suddenly she stood up sharply, causing the lamp to fall onto her long muslin dress; in a matter of seconds, flames engulfed the girl’s hair, she only managed to shout “Save the letters!” Relatives put out the fire of madness, but the number of burns on her body was incompatible with life, and after four painful days Maria died. Her last words were “It’s not his fault, but I...”. There is speculation that it was suicide and not just an accidental death.

Marriage of convenience

Years later, Fet marries Maria Botkina, but not out of strong love, but out of convenience. The image of tall and black-haired Maria Lazic will forever remain in his heart and poetry.

How Fet returned the title

It took the poet several years of service in the infantry to achieve officer rank and receive the nobility. He did not like the army way of life at all; Fet wanted to study literature, not war. But in order to regain his rightful status, he was ready to endure any difficulties. After his service, Fet had to work as a judge for 11 years, and only then did the writer become worthy of receiving a noble title!

Suicide attempt

After receiving a noble title and a family estate, Fet, who had achieved the main goal in his life, under some pretext asked his wife to go visit someone. On November 21, 1892, he locked himself in his office, drank a glass of champagne, called the secretary, dictating the last lines.

“I don’t understand the deliberate increase in inevitable suffering. I voluntarily go towards the inevitable. November 21, Fet (Shenshin)"

He took out a stiletto for cutting paper and raised his hand above his temple; the secretary managed to snatch the stiletto from the writer’s hands. At that moment, Fet jumped out of the office into the dining room, tried to grab the knife, but immediately fell. The secretary ran up to the dying writer, who said only one word “voluntarily” and died. The poet left no heirs behind him.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet(real name Shenshin) (1820-1892) - Russian poet, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1886).

Afanasy Fet was born December 5 (November 23, old style) 1820 in the village of Novoselki, Mtsensk district, Oryol province. He was the illegitimate son of the landowner Shenshin and at the age of fourteen, by decision of the spiritual consistory, received the surname of his mother Charlotte Fet, at the same time losing the right to nobility. Subsequently, he achieved a hereditary noble title and regained his surname Shenshin, but his literary name - Fet - remained with him forever.

Afanasy studied at the Faculty of Literature at Moscow University, here he became close to Apollo Grigoriev and was part of a circle of students who were intensely involved in philosophy and poetry. While still a student, in 1840, Fet published the first collection of his poems, “Lyrical Pantheon.” In 1845-1858 he served in the army, then acquired large lands and became a landowner. According to his convictions, A. Fet was a monarchist and a conservative.

The origin of Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet still remains unclear. According to the official version, Fet was the son of the Oryol landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin and Charlotte-Elizabeth Fet, who ran away from her first husband to Russia. The divorce proceedings dragged on, and the wedding of Shenshin and Fet took place only after the birth of the boy. According to another version, his father was Charlotte-Elizabeth's first husband, Johann-Peter Feth, but the child was born in Russia and was recorded under the name of his adoptive father. One way or another, at the age of 14 the boy was declared illegitimate and deprived of all noble privileges. This event, which overnight turned the son of a wealthy Russian landowner into a rootless foreigner, had a profound impact on Fet’s entire subsequent life. Wanting to protect their son from legal proceedings regarding his origin, the parents sent the boy to a German boarding school in the city of Verro (Võru, Estonia). In 1837, he spent six months in the Moscow boarding school of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin, preparing to enter Moscow University, and in 1838 he became a student in the historical and philological department of the Faculty of Philosophy. The university environment (Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev, in whose house Fet lived throughout his studies, students Yakov Petrovich Polonsky, Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov, Konstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin, etc.) contributed in the best possible way to Fet’s development as a poet. In 1840 he published the first collection “Lyrical Pantheon A.F.” “Pantheon” did not create a particular resonance, but the collection attracted the attention of critics and opened the way to key periodicals: after its publication, Fet’s poems began to appear regularly in “Moskvityanin” and “Otechestvennye zapiski”.

You tell me: I'm sorry! I say: goodbye!

Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich

Hoping to receive a letter of nobility, in 1845 Afanasy Afanasyevich enlisted in the cuirassier order regiment, stationed in the Kherson province, with the rank of non-commissioned officer; a year later he received the rank of officer, but shortly before this it became known that from now on nobility gives only the rank of major. During the years of his Kherson service, a personal tragedy broke out in Fet’s life, which left its mark on the poet’s subsequent work. Fet's beloved, daughter of retired general Maria Lazic, died from her burns - her dress caught fire from an inadvertently or deliberately dropped match. The suicide version seems most likely: Maria was homeless, and her marriage to Fet was impossible. In 1853, Fet was transferred to the Novgorod province, gaining the opportunity to often visit St. Petersburg. His name gradually returned to the pages of magazines, this was facilitated by new friends - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin, Vasily Petrovich Botkin, who were part of the editorial board of Sovremennik. A special role in the poet’s work was played by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, who prepared and published a new edition of Fet’s poems (1856).

In 1859, Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet received the long-awaited rank of major, but the dream of returning the nobility was not destined to come true - since 1856 this title was awarded only to colonels. Fet retired and after a long trip abroad settled in Moscow. In 1857 he married the middle-aged and ugly Maria Petrovna Botkina, receiving a substantial dowry for her, which allowed him to purchase an estate in Mtsensk district. “He has now become an agronomist - a master to the point of despair, has grown a beard down to his loins... he doesn’t want to hear about literature and scolds magazines with enthusiasm,” this is how I. S. Turgenev commented on the changes that happened to Fet. And indeed, for a long time, only accusatory articles about the post-reform state of agriculture came from the pen of the talented poet. “People don’t need my literature, and I don’t need fools,” Fet wrote in a letter to Nikolai Nikolayevich Strakhov, hinting at a lack of interest and misunderstanding on the part of his contemporaries, passionate about civic poetry and the ideas of populism. Contemporaries responded in kind: “All of them (Fet’s poems) are of such content that a horse could write them if it learned to write poetry,” this is the textbook assessment of Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky.

Afanasy Fet returned to literary work only in the 1880s after returning to Moscow. Now he was no longer the rootless poor man Fet, but the rich and respected nobleman Shenshin (in 1873, his dream finally came true, he received a charter of nobility and his father’s surname), a skilled Oryol landowner and owner of a mansion in Moscow. He again became close to his old friends: Polonsky, Strakhov, Solovyov. In 1881, his translation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s main work “The World as Will and Representation” was published, a year later - the first part of “Faust”, in 1883 - the works of Horace, later Decimus Junius Juvenal, Gaius Valerius Catullus, Ovid, Maron Publius Virgil, Johann Friedrich Schiller, Alfred de Musset, Heinrich Heine and other famous writers and poets. Collections of poems under the general title “Evening Lights” were published in small editions. In 1890, two volumes of memoirs “My Memoirs” appeared; the third, "The Early Years of My Life", was published posthumously in 1893.

Towards the end of his life, Fet’s physical condition became unbearable: his vision deteriorated sharply, worsening asthma was accompanied by attacks of suffocation and excruciating pain. On November 21, 1892, Fet dictated to his secretary: “I don’t understand the deliberate increase in inevitable suffering, I voluntarily go towards the inevitable.” The suicide attempt failed: the poet died earlier from apoplexy.

All of Fet's work can be considered in the dynamics of its development. The first poems of the university period tend to glorify the sensual, pagan principles. The beautiful takes on concrete, visual forms, harmonious and complete. There is no contradiction between the spiritual and carnal worlds; there is something that unites them - beauty. The search and revelation of beauty in nature and man is the main task of early Fet. Already in the first period, trends characteristic of later creativity appeared. The objective world became less clear, and shades of the emotional state and impressionistic sensations came to the fore. The expression of the inexpressible, the unconscious, music, fantasy, experience, an attempt to capture the sensual, not an object, but the impression of an object - all this determined the poetry of Afanasy Fet of the 1850-1860s. The writer's later lyricism was largely influenced by the tragic philosophy of Schopenhauer. The creativity of the 1880s was characterized by an attempt to escape into another world, the world of pure ideas and essences. In this, Fet turned out to be close to the aesthetics of the Symbolists, who considered the poet their teacher.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet died December 3 (November 21, old style) 1892, in Moscow.

“His articles, in which he advocated for the interests of the landowners, aroused the indignation of the entire progressive press. After a long break in poetic work, in his seventh decade, in the 80s Fet published a collection of poems “Evening Lights”, where his work developed from new strength.

Fet went down in the history of Russian poetry as a representative of the so-called “pure art.” He argued that beauty is the only goal of the artist. Nature and love were the main themes of Fet's works. But in this relatively narrow area his talent manifested itself with great brilliance. ...

Afanasy Fet He was especially skilled at conveying the nuances of feelings, vague, fugitive or barely emerging moods. “The ability to catch the elusive” is how criticism characterized this trait of his talent.”

Poems by Afanasy Fet

Don't wake her up at dawn
At dawn she sleeps so sweetly;
Morning breathes on her chest,
It shines brightly on the pits of the cheeks.

And her pillow is hot,
And a hot, tiring dream,
And, turning black, they run onto the shoulders
Braids with ribbon on both sides.

And yesterday at the window in the evening
She sat for a long, long time
And watched the game through the clouds,
What, sliding, the moon was up to.

And the brighter the moon played
And the louder the nightingale whistled,
She became paler and paler,
My heart beat more and more painfully.

That's why on the young chest,
This is how the morning burns on the cheeks.
Don't wake her, don't wake her...
At dawn she sleeps so sweetly!

I came to you with greetings,
Tell me that the sun has risen
What is it with hot light
The sheets began to flutter;

Tell me that the forest has woken up,
All woke up, every branch,
Every bird was startled
And full of thirst in spring;

Tell me that with the same passion,
Like yesterday, I came again,
That the soul is still the same happiness
And I’m ready to serve you;

Tell me that from everywhere
Fun is blowing over me
That I don’t know myself that I will
Sing - but only the song is ripening.

There are some sounds
And they cling to my headboard.
They are full of languid separation,
Trembling with unprecedented love.

It would seem, well? Sounded off
The last tender caress
Dust ran down the street,
The postal stroller disappeared...

And only... But the song of separation
Unrealistic teases with love,
And bright sounds rush
And they cling to my headboard.

Muse

How long did you visit my corner again?
Made you still languish and love?
Who did she embody this time?
Whose sweet speech did you manage to bribe?

Give me a hand. Sit down. Light your torch as an inspiration.
Sing, my dear! In silence I recognize your voice
And I will stand, trembling, kneeling,
Remember the poems you sang.

How sweet, forgetting the worries of life,
From pure thoughts to burn and go out,
I smell your mighty breath,
And always listen to your virgin words.

Let's go, heavenly, to my sleepless nights
More blissful dreams and glory and love,
And with a tender name, barely pronounced,
Bless my thoughtful work again.

The neighboring ravine thundered all night,
The stream, bubbling, ran to the stream,
The last pressure of the resurrected waters
He announced his victory.

Did you sleep. I opened the window
Cranes were screaming in the steppe,
And the power of thought carried away
Beyond the borders of our native land,

Fly to the vastness, off-road,
Through the forests, through the fields, -
And beneath me spring trembling
The earth was echoing.

How to trust a migratory shadow?
Why this instant illness,
When you're here; my good genius,
Trouble-experienced friend?

Learn from them - from the oak, from the birch.
It's winter all around. Cruel time!
In vain their tears froze,
And the bark cracked, shrinking.

The blizzard is getting angrier and every minute
Angrily tears up the last sheets, -
And a fierce cold grabs your heart;
They stand, silent; shut up too!

But trust in spring. A genius will rush past her,
Breathing warmth and life again.
For clear days, for new revelations
The grieving soul will get over it.

Forgive and forget everything in your cloudless hour,
Like a young moon at the height of the azure;
And they burst into external bliss more than once
The aspirations of the young frighten the storms.

When, under a cloud, it’s transparent and clean,
The dawn will tell that the day of bad weather has passed, -
You won’t find a blade of grass and you won’t find a leaf,
So that he does not cry and does not shine with happiness.

Drive away a living boat with one push
From sands smoothed by the tides,
Rise in one wave into another life,
Feel the wind from the flowering shores.

Interrupt a dreary dream with a single sound,
Suddenly revel in the unknown, dear,
Give life a sigh, give sweetness to secret torments
Instantly feel someone else’s as your own,

Whisper about something that makes your tongue go numb,
Strengthen the fight of fearless hearts -
This is what only a select few singers possess,
This is his sign and crown!

The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.
Wind. Alone in the forest
Noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun,
I do not understand anything.

Wind. Everything around is humming and swaying,
Leaves are swirling around your feet.
Chu, you can suddenly hear it in the distance
Subtly calling horn.

Sweet is the call of the copper herald to me!
The sheets are dead to me!
It seems from afar as a poor wanderer
You greet tenderly.
1891.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet - quotes

Night. You can't hear the city noise. There is a star in the sky - and from it, like a spark, a thought sank secretly into my sad heart.

Mother! Look from the window - You know, yesterday it was not for nothing that the cat washed her nose: There is no dirt, the whole yard is covered, It has brightened, it has turned white - Apparently, there is frost. Not prickly, light blue. Frost is hanging on the branches - Just look! It’s like someone with fresh, white, plump cotton wool removed everything from the bushes.

Long forgotten, under a light layer of dust, Treasured features, you are again in front of me And in an hour of mental anguish, you instantly resurrected Everything that had long been lost by the soul. Burning with the fire of shame, their eyes again meet One trust, hope and love, And the faded patterns of sincere words drive blood from my heart to my cheeks.

If I meet a bright dawn in the sky, I tell her about my secret, If I approach a forest spring and I whisper to him about the secret. And how the stars tremble in the night, I’m happy to tell them all night; Only when I look at you, I will never say anything.

From the thin lines of the ideal, From the children's sketches of the brow, You have lost nothing, But you suddenly gained everything. Your gaze is open and fearless, Although your soul is quiet; But yesterday’s paradise shines in it And an accomplice to sin.

Fet Afanasy Afanasievich (1820-1892) – Russian poet, memoirist and translator.

Birth and family

In the Oryol province, not far from the city of Mtsensk, in the 19th century the Novoselki estate was located, where on December 5, 1820, in the house of the wealthy landowner Shenshin, a young woman Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker Fet gave birth to a boy, Afanasy.

Charlotte Elisabeth was a Lutheran, lived in Germany and was married to Johann Peter Karl Wilhelm Feth, assessor of the Darmstadt City Court. They married in 1818, and a girl, Caroline-Charlotte-Georgina-Ernestine, was born into the family. And in 1820, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker Fet abandoned her little daughter and husband and left for Russia with Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, being seven months pregnant.

Afanasy Neofitovich was a retired captain. During a trip abroad, he fell in love with the Lutheran Charlotte Elizabeth and married her. But since the Orthodox wedding ceremony was not performed, this marriage was considered legal only in Germany, and in Russia it was declared invalid. In 1822, the woman converted to Orthodoxy, becoming known as Elizaveta Petrovna Fet, and they soon married the landowner Shenshin.

Childhood

The child born in 1820 was baptized in the Orthodox rite that same year and registered in his stepfather’s surname – Shenshin Afanasy Afanasievich.

When the boy was 14 years old, the Oryol provincial authorities discovered that Afanasy was registered under the surname Shenshin before his mother married her stepfather. In connection with this, the guy was deprived of his surname and noble title. This hurt the teenager so deeply, because from a rich heir he instantly turned into a nameless man, and all his life he then suffered because of his dual position.

From that time on, he bore the surname Fet, as the son of a foreigner unknown to him. Afanasy perceived this as a shame, and he had an obsession, which became decisive in his future life path - to return his lost surname.

Training and service

Until the age of 14, Afanasy was educated at home. Then he was assigned to the German boarding school Krommer in the Estonian city of Verro.

At the age of 17, his parents moved the guy to Moscow, where he began preparing for university at the boarding house of Pogodin (a famous historian, journalist, professor and writer at that time).

In 1838, Afanasy became a law student at the university. Then he decided to continue his studies in historical and philological (verbal), transferred and studied until 1844.

After graduating from university, Fet entered the army service; he needed this to regain his noble title. He ended up in one of the southern regiments, from there he was sent to the Uhlan Guards Regiment. And in 1854 he was transferred to the Baltic regiment (it was this period of service that he later described in his memoirs “My Memoirs”).

In 1858, Fet finished his service as a captain, like his stepfather, and settled in Moscow.

Creation

While still studying at the boarding school, Afanasy wrote his first poems and began to be interested in classical philology.

When Fet was studying at the university in Moscow, he made a friend Apollo Grigoriev, who helped Afanasy release his first collection of poetry called “Lyrical Pantheon.” This book did not bring success among readers to the author, but journalists paid attention to the young talent; Belinsky spoke especially well of Afanasy.

Since 1842, Fet's poetry began to be published in the newspapers Otechestvennye zapiski and Moskvityanin.

In 1850, a second book with his poems was published, which was already criticized positively in the Sovremennik magazine, some even admired Fet’s work. After this collection, the author was accepted among famous Russian writers, which included Druzhinin, Nekrasov, Botkin, Turgenev. Literary earnings improved Fet's financial situation, and he went to travel abroad.

The poet was a romantic; three main lines were clearly visible in his poems - love, art and nature. The following collections of his poems were published in 1856 (edited by I. S. Turgenev) and in 1863 (a two-volume collection of works).

Despite the fact that Fet was such a sophisticated lyricist, he managed to perfectly manage business affairs, buy and sell estates, and slowly make a financial fortune.

In 1860, Afanasy bought the Stepanovka farm, began to manage it, lived there constantly, only appearing briefly in Moscow in the winter.

In 1877 he bought the Vorobyovka estate in the Kursk province. In 1881, Afanasy bought a house in Moscow and came to Vorobyovka only for the summer dacha period. Now he again took up creativity, wrote memoirs, made translations and released another lyrical collection of poems, “Evening Lights.”

The most popular poems of Afanasy Fet:

• “I came to you with greetings”;
• "Mother! Look out the window";
• “How brightly the full moon silvered this roof”;
• “I still love, I still yearn”;
• "Wonderful picture";
• “Don’t wake her up at dawn”;
• “Whisper, timid breathing...”;
• "Storm";
• "Death";
• "I won't tell you anything."

Personal life

In 1857, Fet married Maria Petrovna Botkina, the sister of a famous critic. Her brother Sergei Petrovich Botkin is a famous physician, after whom a Moscow hospital is named. Nephew Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was shot along with the royal family of Emperor Nicholas II in 1918.

Despite the fact that Afanasy Afanasievich was returned to the noble title and surname Shenshin in 1873, he continued to sign Fet.

Children of the marriage of Fet A.A. and Botkina M.P. did not have.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet for the first 14 and last 19 years of his life he officially bore the surname Shenshin; (November 23 [December 5], Novoselki estate, Mtsensk district, Oryol province - November 21 [December 3], Moscow) - Russian lyricist of German origin, translator, memoirist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences ().

Encyclopedic YouTube

• 1 / 5

  After graduating from the university, Afanasy Fet entered military service in 1845 and became a cavalryman. In 1846 he was awarded the first officer rank.

  Half sister - Nadezhda Afanasyevna Borisova, nee Shenshina (09.11.1832-1869), married since January 1858 to Ivan Petrovich Borisov (1822-1871). Their only son Peter (1858-1888), after the death of his father, was raised in the family of A. A. Fet.

  Half brother - Petr Afanasyevich Shenshin(1834-after 1875), went to Serbia in the fall of 1875 in order to volunteer in the Serbian-Turkish War, but soon returned to Vorobyovka. However, he soon left for America, where his traces were lost.

  Half-siblings - Anna (1821-1825), Vasily (1823-before 1827), who died in childhood. Perhaps there was another sister Anna (7.11.1830-?).

  Wife (from August 16, 1857) - Maria Petrovna Shenshina, nee Botkina (1828-1894), from the Botkin family. Her brothers: Vasily Petrovich Botkin, a famous literary and art critic, author of one of the most significant articles about the work of A. A. Fet, Sergei Petrovich Botkin, a doctor after whom a hospital in Moscow is named. There were no children in the marriage. Nephew - Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin, who was shot in 1918 in Yekaterinburg together with the family of Nicholas II.

  Creation

  Being one of the most sophisticated lyricists, Fet amazed his contemporaries by the fact that this did not prevent him from being at the same time an extremely businesslike, enterprising and successful landowner.

  A famous phrase written by Fet and included in “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by A. N. Tolstoy is “And the rose fell on Azor’s paw.”

  Fet is a late romantic. Its three main themes are nature, love, art, united by the theme of beauty.

  I came to you with greetings, to tell you that the sun has risen, that it trembled with hot light across the sheets.

  Translations

  • both parts of Goethe's Faust (-),
  • a number of Latin poets:
  • Horace, all of whose works in Fetov's translation were published in 1883,
  • satires of Juvenal (),
  • poems of Catullus (),
  • Elegies of Tibullus (),
  • XV books of "Transformations"

  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 fairy 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 poems 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.