I.A. Krylov was a contemporary of V.A. Zhukovsky, A.P. Sumarokova, A.S. Pushkina, M.Yu. Lermontova, N.V. Gogol, V.G. Belinsky, I.S. Turgeneva, L.N. Tolstoy and many other outstanding people of his time. He lived a long life, was recognized and loved by his contemporaries, and during his lifetime 12 editions of his fables were published. Since 1820, Krylov's fables began to be translated into foreign languages. In the preface to the French edition it was said: “... not a single nation has a fabulist who would stand above Krylov in invention and originality.” But he became especially revered after his death, when his role as an educator of the morals of Russian society was repeatedly emphasized by many philologists and public figures in Russia. Krylov’s exceptional success was noted by V.G. Belinsky. The critic called Krylov “the people's poet” - not a single Russian writer has been awarded this high title.
The nationality of creativity and democratic views are associated with the origin of the writer. Krylov was born in Moscow. He was the son of an army officer, who, due to the nature of his service, was forced to travel with his family throughout Russia with his regiment. His mother was a simple, illiterate woman, but “intelligent by nature and filled with high virtues,” as the writer himself later recalled. Krylov spent his early childhood in Orenburg; He was there with his mother and during the uprising of E. Pugachev, his father led the defense of the Yaitsky town. Collecting materials on the history of the Pugachev rebellion, A.S. Pushkin was the first to record Krylov's stories about this period of his life. Soon, with the rank of captain, my father left military service and took the place of assessor of the chamber of the criminal court of the Tver governorship. The father was busy with service and could not pay due attention to raising his son, but it was he who instilled in the boy the initial reading and writing skills. Basically, the little boy was in the care of his mother, who was his constant kind mentor. Later, Krylov remembered her with great love, respect and gratitude, “as the first joy, as the first happiness of life.” Soon the father dies and the mother is left with two children in her arms (by this time another boy, Leo, was born in the family). The family falls into extreme poverty. At that time there were no schools; children were taught by foreign tutors. Out of mercy, Krylov was allowed to study with the children of the Tver landowners Lvov. The boy studied reluctantly, and it was a great effort for his mother to force him to continue his studies. It was she who taught him to systematically study and instilled in him a love of reading. The boy was forced to serve in court as a sub-clerk in the Tver magistrate. The mother continued to study with her son as much as possible. The boy was possessed by a passion for reading very early. Encouraged by his mother, he first re-read his father's books and then began getting them out on his own. It is known, in particular, that when he sold his first opera, “The Coffee House,” he refused to take money for his work and bought books for the entire amount (60 rubles in banknotes), including works by Moliere, Racine, and Boileau. Later he learned to read and write in German and Italian, and after fifty years (already a famous writer) he independently (on a dare) mastered the ancient Greek language by reading classical authors. It is known that Krylov took English lessons, drew well, played the violin, knew music theory, was fond of mathematics, and was not devoid of acting talent, but never received a systematic education. He learned French self-taught.
Self-education bears fruit, and Krylov enters an independent life with a wide range of interests, versatile knowledge and erudition. At this time, the family already lives in Moscow.
Krylov himself did not like to talk about himself. When he became famous, he was asked to write an autobiography, but he refused. When his biography was written by Kamensky and he was asked: “Read and correct or erase as you please,” Krylov replied: “I read it, there is no time or desire to correct it.” Shortly before his last illness, Paris sent him his biography for a biographical dictionary of memorable people. According to a contemporary, he replied: “Let them write what they want about me.” That is why there are many blank spots in the writer’s biography and even the exact year of his birth is unknown. The official celebration of the 50th anniversary of creative activity and the 70th anniversary of his birth took place noisily and pompously in 1838, although Krylov himself objected to this, but his protests were not heard.
Krylov’s creative path is divided into two stages: in the 1780-1790s. Krylov is a playwright and journalist (this is a writer of the 18th century), the second stage is qualitatively different, when Krylov becomes a fabulist (and this is already a writer of the 19th century).
KRYLOV-PLAYWRIGHT. Krylov began his creative career as a playwright. The first youthful dramatic experience was the comic opera “The Coffee Shop,” which depicted the morals of the era. In 1787, he wrote a prose comedy “Pranksters”, which caused a lot of noise, since in it the famous writer-playwright Ya.B. Knyazhnin. A scandal broke out, and the play, which had been accepted for production, was removed from the repertoire.
The most significant work of this period was “Podschipa, or Trump,” written for an amateur performance, in which the author himself took part, playing the role of Trump. In this play, the young playwright ridiculed both “German” civilization and domestic patriarchal mores. Contemporaries saw it as a mockery of the government. The play was banned by censorship and was not published, but was constantly performed on amateur stages.
At the beginning of the 19th century. Krylov composed his most famous comedies: “Fashionable Shop” (staged in 1806, published in 1807) and “Lesson for Daughters” (staged and published in 1807), as well as the fairy-tale comic opera “Ilya the Bogatyr” (staged in 1806, published 1807). The comedies “Lesson for Daughters” and “Fashion Shop” were a resounding success thanks to the many comic situations, the liveliness and believability of the characters, the many realistic, everyday situations, the lack of didactics and thanks to all sorts of funny details. The plays remained in the repertoire throughout the 19th century. and were even staged in the 20th century.
In his dramatic works, the young author acts as a satirist, a master of dialogue and construction of mise-en-scène. With the directness of a publicist, he criticizes modern mores, depicting characters satirically and grotesquely. Already at this time, he began to understand the role of the writer as a mentor to his fellow citizens.
KRYLOV-JOURNALIST. Krylov’s views on the mission of the writer as a corrector of the morals of society should inevitably lead him to journalism. Since 1789, the monthly publication “Mail of Spirits” began to be published, the main author of which was Krylov. In the genre of the epistolary novel, a grotesque picture of modern morals is created and the absurdity of the usual order of things is demonstrated. The author hopes to transform the world through the influence of common sense. In the book there are transparent hints about the morals of the court and the order in the empire. “Spirit Mail” was discontinued on its eighth, August issue due to increased censorship persecution after the outbreak of the French bourgeois revolution.
The satirical wit of “Spirit Mail” amazed contemporaries with its topicality and boldness. That is why memoirists, the author’s contemporaries, did not dare to write much about this period; only a few vague references are known to Krylov’s clashes with the authorities. It is no coincidence that the authorship of “Spirit Mail” in French memoirs is erroneously attributed to AN. Radishchev, the author of the seditious “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” In 1789, Krylov (together with the famous actor I.A. Dmitrevsky, actor and playwright P.A. Plavilshchikov and writer A.I. Klushin) founded the publishing house “Krylov and Comrades”. In February 1792, the magazine “Spectator” began to be published, where Krylov published satirical “eulogies”, articles, stories “Nights” and “Kaib”, which continued to expose modern morals and criticize social foundations. But this did not last long. Already in May, a search was carried out in the printing house and the story “My Fever” was taken from Krylov (it was not preserved). Krylov was placed under police surveillance. Nevertheless, in 1793, Krylov, together with Klushin, began publishing “St. Petersburg Mercury,” where he continued to publish poems, speeches, and reviews of plays. The entire first stage in Krylov’s work is considered to be a preparatory school for his main calling, thanks to which he became a classic of Russian literature. But already at this time, Krylov became a famous author of his time, not a member of literary groups and focusing on common sense, worldly wisdom, preferring all this to book wisdom.
KRYLOV THE FABLEWRITER. Krylov began writing fables in 1788-1789, but these were only the first experiments, which the author himself never even included in the collection of his fables. The second, mature stage of Krylov’s work occurred in the first half of the 19th century, when he became a fabulist. It was in fables that Krylov’s satirical talent was fully revealed, who was able to successfully apply his dramatic and journalistic experience to this genre: according to researchers, a fable contains elements of lyricism, epic and drama.
Krylov took the fable “The Oak and the Reed” (1805) to court by I.I. Dmitriev, the most famous fabulist of that time, who approved this endeavor. In 1806, two fables appeared in the magazine “Moscow Spectator” - “The Oak and the Cane” and “The Picky Bride.” And already in 1809, Krylov published a collection, which included 23 fables. Later, “New Fables” were published, which, along with the old ones (already revised by that time), included completely new fables. In addition, individual fables were regularly published in various magazines of the time. Then Krylov prepared a publication of fables in 9 books, which included about 200 titles.
The author himself considered his “Fables in Nine Books” as an integral work. The order of placing the fables was thought out by him and was constantly improved (this principle is still a mystery). The only thing that remained unchanged was the beginning: the fable “The Crow and the Fox” opened the collection of fables in all editions. The social and moral problems posed in the fables were generated by real life, the state of Russian society, and together they created a specific “image” of Russia.
In Krylov’s time, the fable was a fashionable genre; almost all writers created fables. The allegorical form of the fable made it possible to ambiguously understand its meaning, making it possible, on the one hand, to bypass censorship, and on the other, to offer a multifaceted interpretation of the depicted phenomena, which had both a positive and negative side. It was the breadth of interpretation that often provided fables with immortality, although the specific reason that led to the creation of the fable has long been forgotten or is known only to specialists. The fable itself is alive and “working” centuries later.
Life and work of I.A. Krylova
LYCEUM No. 25
ABSTRACT
on literature
on the topic: “LIFE AND CREATIVITY
I. A. KRYLOVA"
Completed:
Danil Makarchuk
student of class 6 "A"
Checked:
Kochergina T. N.
In the richest gallery of Russian classical writers, the image of the fable writer Krylov is one of the most original and colorful.
Ivan Andreevich Krylov was born in 1769 and died on November 21, 1844. The years of his life seemed to be divided between two centuries. But, being one of the last major representatives of Russian literature of the 18th century, Krylov at the same time became the first in the great family of Russian realist writers of the 19th century. Krylov's work was a kind of link that connected together the two ends of the golden literary chain - the advanced traditions of Novikov, Fonvizin, Radishchev with the work of Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol
The most significant of Krylov's entire literary heritage - the fables that he wrote, with few exceptions, in the 19th century, somewhat overshadowed the early period of his work. Meanwhile, it was in this early period that the roots of Krylov the fabulist go.
Krylov came to literature from democratic, labor strata of society. His early childhood was spent amid the anxieties and excitement of a marching, combat life. His father was promoted to officer after thirteen years of military service in one of the army infantry regiments.
Soon, in 1778, he died. Krylov's mother, although she was a woman of little learning, really wanted to give her eldest son a good education; Krylov himself was eager to learn. However, he had to think not about studying, but about ensuring the existence of his family. At the age of eight, he was already “registered” for bureaucratic service. The boy faced the dismal prospect of “getting stuck in clerks.” But Krylov did not want to come to terms with this. He inherited a chest of books from his father. The boy greedily attacked them. From here, apparently, came his first attraction to literature.
Thanks to courage and perseverance, Krylov managed to fulfill his dreams - to break out into the open. In 1782, the thirteen-year-old clerk moved with his family to St. Petersburg, where he got a new job - as a clerk in the Treasury Chamber, with an annual salary of only ninety rubles. However, all of Krylov’s thoughts were already turned to literature at this time.
One of the very common dramatic genres at that time was the so-called “comic opera”. Krylov also writes a comic opera called “The Coffee House”.
The play of the aspiring young author, naturally, was still weak artistically, but at the same time Krylov himself later, already in the years of his glory, noticed that he managed to correctly sketch the “mores of the era” in it. Krylov boldly and confidently sketches sharply accusatory pictures of wild landowner tyranny and violence. The young author managed to interest one of the St. Petersburg booksellers in the play, who bought it for sixty rubles. “The Coffee House” did not appear either in print or on stage, but Krylov’s literary activity, delighted and inspired by his first success, began to unfold more and more energetically. Following The Coffee House, he writes one after another two tragedies, an opera, and a comedy.
However, Krylov did not want to accommodate the then bosses of the St. Petersburg theater. As a result, none of these early plays of his appeared on stage. And yet Krylov boldly decides to quit his service and devote himself completely to literature!
Krylov's literary activity in the first period, which lasted about a decade (1786 - 1796), shows the exceptional talent of the young author. Twenty-year-old Krylov, who did not receive any systematic education, did not study at any school, reveals excellent awareness of the most advanced phenomena of contemporary educational literature and poses in his work, especially in his satirical journalism, all those problems that worried the minds of our enlighteners. This period of Krylov’s activity is outstanding in the sense that the writer seems to be trying his hand at all literary genres and types. In addition to theatrical plays, at this time he wrote a wide variety of poetic works (civil poems, friendly messages, love songs), prose stories, satirical essays, theater reviews, etc. But everything that Krylov wrote in these years, no matter how No matter how his works differed from each other in form, they had one common feature - a sharp accusatory and satirical attitude towards feudal-serf reality.
The bearer of advanced ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, Krylov by nature was a convinced and consistent humanist. During the period of cruel suppression of the human personality by autocracy and serfdom, he raised high the banner of man, of human dignity.
Krylov had a lofty view of the tasks of literature and the social role of the writer. Krylov strives in his work to reveal the truth - to show reality as it really is: without odic exaggeration and idyllic embellishment. This aspiration, in essence, is very close to the tasks that our realist writers would later set for themselves. This, naturally, pushed Krylov into the mainstream of one of the most significant movements of the literature that preceded and contemporary him - the satirical movement, in the depths of which elements of future critical realism gradually accumulated, and the later, “Gogolian direction” had long been prepared.
The satirical movement arose at the very origins of Russian literature of the 18th century, starting with satire and Cantemir, which created a stable tradition that lasted throughout the century.
A satirical current permeates all of the work of the young Krylov, noticeably comes through in a number of his poems, and sharply appears in his drama. But with the greatest brightness and brilliance, Krylov’s enormous satirical talent and exceptional satirical temperament unfolded in his satirical and journalistic prose on the pages of “Mail of Spirits” (1789) and in two other magazines - “Spectator” (1792) and “St. Petersburg Mercury” ( 1793).
Krylov's satire was the highest rise in the development of the satirical direction of Russian literature of the 18th century. Krylov certainly had all the data to become a great satirist. But the time for this was very unfavorable.
The next ten-plus years are the least illuminated period in Krylov’s biography. Despite all the external changes and often unfavorable circumstances, the multi-talented Krylov continued to live an active inner life during these years: he studied languages, intensively practiced drawing, playing the violin, in which he achieved very great skill. But his literary activity almost completely froze.
In March 1801, the “crowned villain” - Paul I - was killed in his palace. The new Russian autocrat - his son Alexander I - wanting to win over public opinion, began to play at liberalism, in particular, he significantly weakened the oppression of censorship. This made it possible for Krylov to resume his literary activity. But Krylov’s complete return to literature, as if his second literary birth, occurred only in 180b. By this time, Krylov had translated two or three fables from La Fontaine and showed his translations to the poet I. I. Dmitriev, who at that time enjoyed the reputation of a major fabulist. Dmitriev was absolutely delighted. “This is your family, you found it,” he said to Krylov.
More and more Krylov’s fables began to appear in magazines. Collections of his fables began to be published in separate editions, the total circulation of which, during Krylov’s lifetime, reached a figure that was completely unheard of and unprecedented for that time - 77 thousand copies.
During the same time, Krylov's fables were translated into ten languages.
Krylov’s life, which was previously full of worries and changes, comes to a smooth, calm flow. In 1812, he became a librarian at the St. Petersburg Public Library, remaining in this job almost until his death.
Pushkin called Krylov in all respects “our most popular poet,” that is, both the most national and the most popular. But Krylov became the most popular precisely because before Pushkin he was our most national writer. In his fables, in the words of Belinsky, “a side of the spirit of an entire people was expressed,” “a side of the life of millions.”
The fable genre attracted Krylov with its broadest democracy - universal intelligibility, universal accessibility. When someone asked the writer why he creates only fables. Krylov replied: “This genre is understandable to everyone: both servants and children read it.”
Fables were the creative result, the crown of Krylov’s long and varied literary activity. He translated into them all his initial creative experience - as a playwright, satirist, and lyric poet. “Krylov’s fables,” notes Belinsky, “are not just fables: they are a story, a comedy, a humorous essay, an evil satire - in a word, whatever you want, just not just a fable.”
In a very large number of his fables, such as “The Crow and the Fox”, “The Frog and the Wolf”, “The Titmouse”, “The Monkey and the Glasses”, “Pedestrians and Dogs”, “The Liar”, “The Rooster and the Seed of Pearls”, “ “Pig under the oak tree” and others, Krylov ridicules envy, stinginess, deceit, boasting, flattery, greed, ignorance, selfishness. His other fables provide brilliant images of everyday satire, satire on morals (“A Peasant in a Conversation,” “Trishkin’s Caftan,” “Demyanov’s Ear,” etc.) Finally, in a number of fables, Krylov rises from a satirical exposure of private vices to political and social satire (“The Wolf and the Mouse”, “Fish Dance”, “The Motley Sheep”).
Krylov the fabulist, like Krylov the satirist, is characterized by deep democracy. In the clash between “sheep” and “wolves”, “weak” and “strong”, humble workers and impudent parasite drones, in a word, between the people and their oppressors - in this eternal conflict of class society, which plays out in all ways, under different guises before us in so many of Krylov’s fables, he is always on the side of the people. He tirelessly attacks all kinds of “thieves” and “thieves” of the people’s property, all these predators who are “rich in either claw or tooth” - tigers, bears, greedy wolves, cunning foxes. At the same time, Krylov unambiguously reveals the fable's pseudonyms, directly indicating who is hiding under them: unjust judges, selfish and corrupt officials, arrogant robber nobles.
In the overwhelming majority, the satire of Krylov's fables is not of an abstract and general nature, but is imbued with the most burning, burning topicality. A whole series of Krylov’s fables represent a direct response to events in socio-political life that deeply affected him as a patriot and citizen.
“But the great lover of the people, Krylov, not only depicts in his fables the lack of rights and oppression of the people, he also expresses his deep faith in the people, his conviction that it is the people who play the main role in the life of the country. This most ardent conviction of Krylov is, as it were, the leibmotif of his fable creativity.
All our writers and critics, starting with Pushkin and Belinsky, note in Krylov’s fables the special “cheerful mockery” of the Russian mind, “the ability to look at things in a purely Russian way and grasp their funny side in well-aimed irony.
Krylov gave the fable genre the brightest national identity; Even on his translated fables he left an indelible Russian imprint. “His animals think and act too much like Russians,” Gogol wrote about Krylov. – ... In addition to the true animal resemblance, which he has so strong that not only a fox, a bear, a wolf, but even the pot itself turns as if alive, they also showed Russian nature in themselves... He smells of Rus' everywhere Russia." These reviews are picked up and developed by Belinsky: “Someone once said that “in Krylov’s fables the bear is a Russian bear, the hen is a Russian hen”: these words made everyone laugh, but there is a practical basis in them, albeit a ridiculously degenerate one .
The fact is that in Krylov’s best fables there are neither bears nor foxes, although these animals seem to act in them, but there are people, and Russian people at that.” The statements of Gogol and Belinsky aptly reveal the realistic nature of Krylov’s fable images.
The images of animals in fables have the character of a kind of permanent masks: the fox always signifies cunning, the donkey - stupidity, the wolf - greed, etc. For the first time in all of world literature, Krylov managed to turn the fable into a truly realistic genre.
Krylov's fables are deeply folk in their form, in their artistic material - words, language. Young Pushkin considered Krylov the only writer “whose style is Russian.” And Krylov was truly the first in our literature before Pushkin to completely merge the literary language with living folk speech, saturate his fables with folk forms, words, “winged” folk expressions, and proverbs. A huge number of individual passages and expressions from Krylov’s fables, in turn, became a kind of proverbs. (“And the little casket just opened”, “And Vaska listens and eats”, “I didn’t even notice the elephant” and many others).
Krylov achieves unprecedented mastery in the artistic treatment of his fables: in the sculpting of images, in the bright picturesqueness of the language, in the amazing depiction of “free” fable verse, which under his pen becomes unusually plastic, capable of taking any form.
Krylov's significance for Russian word art is not limited to the realm of fables. So Lomonosov, like Pushkin, Krylov had a profound impact and gave a powerful impetus to the entire movement of our literature. Krylov's fables were our first, in Pushkin's words, “truly folk” and truly realistic works. This determines their extremely important role. From Krylov’s fables, which absorbed and embodied the best achievements of our literature of the 18th century, direct threads stretch to such greatest creations of our artistic realism as “Woe from Wit”, “Eugene Onegin”, “Dead Souls”. Even during Krylov’s lifetime, Belinsky inspiredly prophesied: “The glory... Krylov will continue to grow and flourish more magnificently...”
Nowadays, Krylov's fame has gone far beyond national boundaries. Krylov sounds not only in Russian and in the languages of the peoples of the Soviet Union, but also in almost all languages of the world. Krylov's fables have been translated into more than fifty languages. Krylov had great predecessors in world fable literature, but not one of them managed to bring into his fables only a truly folk spirit, so much inner realistic truthfulness! In this respect, the great Russian fabulist Krylov is the greatest fabulist in the world.
Similar abstracts:
About the childhood of Ivan Turgenev.
I.I. KRYLOV AT THE CAUCASIAN MINERAL WATERS. STUDYING THE PROBLEM. Message at the scientific and practical conference “I.I. Krylov. Artist. Teacher. Citizen".
Ivan Andreevich Krylov is our wonderful poet and fabulist, who gave the fable a new birth. As Belinsky put it, in his fables he fully expressed an entire side of the Russian national spirit.
Ivan Andreevich Krylov is a wonderful writer who managed to give the fable high meaning and satirical sharpness, relevance and ambiguity. The brevity and imagery of Krylov’s language are amazing.
Aphorisms reflecting a physiological view of the world, Aphorisms about human upbringing, about psychology. Catchphrases and other means of expressing the author's position.
Thus, a fable is a short story, often poetic, always of a moralizing nature, which makes it similar to a parable. At the beginning or more often at the end of the work, a conclusion is formulated, the main instructive idea is morality.
I.A. began in noisy and bustling Moscow, where the future fabulist writer was born on February 2 (13), 1769.
Krylov's childhood years
Ivan Andreevich’s parents were forced to frequently move from one place to another. At the height of the peasant uprising led by Emelyan Pugachev, Krylov and his mother were in Orenburg, and the father of the future writer was a captain in the Yaitsky town itself. Krylov was even mentioned in Pugachev’s hanging list, but, fortunately for the family, it didn’t come to that. However, after some time, Andrei Krylov dies, and the family is left with practically no money. Ivan's mother is forced to work part-time in the houses of rich people. Krylov himself began working at a very early age - from the age of nine. He was allowed to copy business papers for a small salary.
Then the boy received his education in the house of N. A. Lvov, a famous writer. Ivan studied with the owner’s children, met with artists and writers who often came to visit Lvov, and listened to their conversations.
Due to some fragmentary education, the writer subsequently encountered many difficulties. However, over time, he managed to learn to write correctly, significantly expand his horizons and even master the Italian language.
First attempts at writing
A new stage began in the life of the future fabulist from the moment the family moved to St. Petersburg. The biography of I. A. Krylov during this period is especially interesting, because it was at this time that his first steps on the literary path took place. The fabulist’s mother went to the northern capital to resolve the pension issue, but her efforts were unsuccessful.
Krylov himself, without wasting any time, gets a job in the office of the Treasury Chamber. However, official matters do not bother him too much. He spends almost all his free time on literary studies, visiting theaters, and begins to communicate closely with talented famous actors, as well as with P. A. Soimonov, the theater director.
Even after the death of his mother, Ivan's hobbies remain the same. Although now it is more difficult for the future fabulist: he must keep an eye on his younger brother, who remained in his care.
Biography of I. A. Krylov in the 80s. is a constant collaboration with the world of theater. During this period, librettos for the operas “Coffee Shop”, “Mad Family”, “Cleopatra”, as well as a comedy called “The Writer in the Hallway” came out from under his hand. Of course, they did not bring either fame or huge fees. But they allowed Krylov to join the literati of St. Petersburg.
The young man is taken under the protection of the popular playwright Knyazhin and strives to help Krylov more successfully promote his works. However, Ivan Andreevich himself not only refuses this help, but also ends any relationship with Prince, after which he writes the comedy “Pranksters,” in which he ridicules the playwright and his wife in every possible way. It is not at all strange that the comedy itself was banned from production, and the author ruined relations with both the writers and the theater management, thanks to whom the works were staged.
At the end of the decade, Krylov expressed a desire to try his hand at journalism. His songs were published in the magazine “Morning Hours” in 1788, but they also went unnoticed. After this, Ivan Andreevich decides to publish his magazine (“Spirit Mail”), which is published over eight months in 1789. “Spirit Mail” takes the form of correspondence between fairy-tale characters - gnomes and a wizard. In it, the author presents a caricature of the society of that time. However, the magazine was soon closed by censorship, explaining that the publication had only 80 subscribers.
Since 1790, Krylov retired, after which he devoted himself entirely to literary activities. At this time, the biography of I. A. Krylov is closely intertwined with the life paths of the author’s friends - A. Klushina, P. Plavilshchikov and I. Dmitriev. Ivan Andreevich runs the printing house and, together with his friends, begins to publish the magazine “Spectator” (later “St. Petersburg Mercury”). In 1793, the magazine was finally closed, and Krylov left the capital for several years.
In the service of Prince Golitsyn
Until 1797, Krylov lived in Moscow, and then began to travel around the country, staying at the houses and estates of his friends. The fabulist was constantly looking for sources of income, and for some time he found what he wanted in card games. By the way, Krylov was known as a very successful player, on the verge of cheating.
Prince Sergei Fedorovich Golitsyn, having met Ivan Andreevich, invited him to become his home teacher and personal secretary. Krylov lives on the prince’s estate on the territory of the Kyiv province and studies literature and languages with the sons of the aristocrat. Here he writes plays for production in the home theater, and also masters the skill of playing various musical instruments.
In 1801, Alexander I ascended the throne, who had great confidence in Golitsyn and appointed him governor-general of Livonia. Krylov, in turn, is given the position of ruler of the chancellery. Until 1803, the fabulist worked in Riga, and then moved to his brother in Serpukhov.
Creative glory
Krylov’s work and biography become especially interesting starting from this time. Indeed, during this period, for the first time, Krylov’s play (“Pie”) won the hearts of the audience and brought long-awaited success to the author. He decides to continue his literary activity and returns to St. Petersburg.
In 1805, Ivan Andreevich demonstrated to I. Dmitriev, a talented poet, his first translations of fables. It becomes clear that the writer has found his true calling. But Krylov, nevertheless, publishes only three fables and again returns to drama. The next few years were particularly fruitful in this regard. Krylov is known and loved by connoisseurs of theatrical art, and the play “Fashionable Shop” was performed even at court.
However, Krylov himself is increasingly moving away from the theater and is seriously interested in translating and composing his own fables. In 1809, his first collection appeared on the shelves. Gradually, the number of works grew, new collections were published, and by 1830 there were already 8 volumes of Krylov’s fables.
In 1811, Ivan Andreevich became a member of the Russian Academy, and twelve years later he received a gold medal from it for achievements in literature. In 1841, Krylov was appointed academician of the department of Russian language and literature. Since 1812, writer-librarian at the Imperial Public Library. Krylov also receives a pension for his services to Russian literature, and after the publication of the eight-volume edition, he doubles the pension and appoints the writer as a state councilor.
In the winter of 1838, St. Petersburg supported the celebration of the author’s fiftieth creative anniversary with respect and solemnity. By this time, Krylov was already put on a par with the classics of Russian literature - Pushkin, Derzhavin, Griboedov. Ivan Andreevich's latest fables have been translated into more than 50 languages.
Last years
In 1841, Krylov retired and settled on Vasilyevsky Island to live in peace and for his own pleasure. The writer was always not averse to eating delicious food and lying on the couch, which is why some called him a glutton and a lazy person.
However, until his last days, Krylov worked on a new collection of essays. He died on November 9 (21), 1844 in St. Petersburg from double pneumonia.
Curious facts about the writer
There are interesting facts from Krylov’s biography that are worth mentioning in this article. For example, the fabulist was almost never shy and never missed an opportunity to make fun of the shortcomings of those around him.
One day he was walking along the Fontanka embankment. Seeing the massive figure of an unfamiliar old man, the resting students began to laugh, saying, “a cloud is coming.” Passing by them, Krylov calmly replied: “...And the frogs croaked.”
Another interesting incident happened to Ivan Andreevich in the theater. His neighbor turned out to be very noisy: he stomped his feet to the beat of the music, even sang along. Krylov said loudly enough: “Disgrace!” The writer’s neighbor insultedly asked if this applied to him, to which Krylov ironically replied that he said this “to that gentleman on the stage who is preventing me from listening to you [the neighbor].”
An indicative incident occurred after the author’s death. Paying tribute to Krylov, Count Orlov, who was the second person after the emperor, personally carried the coffin of the fabulist with ordinary students, all the way to the funeral cart.
Following the comic opera, Krylov took up tragedy, which, without a doubt, attracted him due to the significance and principle of the problems that were usually developed in this genre, problems of ethics and politics in the first place. Krylov’s first experience in this direction – “Cleopatra” – has not reached us; Dmitrevsky, to whom Krylov gave his tragedy for review, politely but decisively rejected it. Then Krylov wrote “Philomela” (1786). Much in this tragedy goes back to the examples of Sumarokov; The desire to imitate French playwrights is noticeable in her. This is a youthful, immature and dependent thing; but the essential thing about it is that the young author strives to raise in it the problems of the king’s right to arbitrariness and the people to revolt, the problems of family morality, that he strives to write an ideological, principled and courageous play in the spirit of Voltaire.
Ivan Andreevich Krylov was born in 1769. His father was a nobleman, but was not a landowner. The nobility of the Krylovs was not ancestral, but served by rank; according to the concepts firmly held among the landowners, this was not real nobility. Krylov the father was a clerk with a sword, a man without rights, but with many responsibilities. For thirteen years he served as a soldier in the army, then he was thrown into Orenburg: in the capital’s military unit he was “not able to correct himself with ceremonial things.” In the Urals A.P. Krylov took part in the civil war against the rebel people led by Pugachev. At the end of 1773, he defended the Yaitsky town (Uralsk) from Pugachev.
He clearly saw who his enemy was, but did not see a powerful enough friendly environment that would teach him what and for whom to fight. Hence the instability of Krylov’s protest and the vagueness of its positive ideals. And yet the strength of this protest, the bitterness of Krylov’s attacks made him one of the most courageous and radical democratic writers of the late 18th century.
When Krylov wrote “The Coffee House,” he was about fourteen years old; but the direction of his thought is already outlined quite clearly in this work. This is social satire. A noble landowner, a socialite, a fashionista shows wild cruelty towards her serfs; she is carried away by some kind of stick inspiration; at the same time she is ignorant. The theme of the opera is the horror of serfdom, the lack of rights and oppression of peasants, squeezing all the juice out of them. Krylov here seems to adhere to the tradition of liberal drama – partly “The Minor” and especially “Misfortune from the Coach” by Knyazhnin (1779); “The Coffee House” has a lot in common with this comic opera in terms of plot (in general, the scheme: an evil clerk wants to marry a peasant girl and leads an intrigue against her lover is the basis of the plot of many comedies and operas of the 18th century, French and Russian).
In 1782, thirteen-year-old Krylov and his mother moved from Tver to St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, he entered the treasury chamber and soon received the rank of provincial secretary. It was a very small rank. He served, apparently, without salary. But in 1786 he was already assigned either eighty or ninety rubles a year. At this time, Krylov was already a writer.
Krylov had neither colossal education nor the thoughtful depth of Radishchev’s philosophical views. But from childhood he knew how to hate noble statehood and noble culture. A nobleman by passport, but in fact a “little man”, a modest “clerk” by origin, he experienced both need and humiliation from the very first steps of his adult life. He could feel like a “plebeian,” although he had not grown to realize the blood connection with the broad masses of the enslaved people. Individualism and the futility of personal rebellion set a limit to the revolutionization of his views.
Ivan Krylov's magazine "Spirit Mail" 
