Yazykov Nikolay Mikhailovich(03/04/1803-12/26/1846), poet. Born on the Volga, in the city of Simbirsk, into a noble family that belonged to an old and wealthy family. According to the tradition of that time, he received a good education at home, began writing poetry early and devoted himself to this activity with enthusiasm. At the age of twelve he was sent to the St. Petersburg Institute of Mining Engineers (1814). Yazykov did not have any aspirations to study there; he was probably sent there because his two older brothers were already studying there. The poet's elder brother Peter (1798-1851) later became an outstanding geologist. Not feeling inclined towards mathematics and other special subjects, Yazykov completely abandoned his studies, overpowering himself only occasionally. Fortunately, at the Mining Institute, Yazykov was placed under the special supervision of the teacher of Russian literature, Alexei Dmitrievich Markov, a highly educated and enlightened man. Alexey Dmitrievich loved Yazykov like a son, tried to develop his abilities, forcing him to study the works of Derzhavin and Lomonosov. In 1820, Yazykov completed his studies at the Institute and entered the Engineering Corps, although he had no desire to study there. He was finally expelled in 1821 “for not going to class.” While studying in St. Petersburg, Yazykov made acquaintances in the writing circle and began publishing in 1819. Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, and later Byron and young Pushkin were literary idols and teachers for him. To the plasticity and melody of the verse of the poets of the Zhukovsky school, Yazykov added the power, loudness and solemnity of the verse of the classicists Lomonosov and Derzhavin. The young poet's poems, full of fire and movement, were met with great sympathy. A.F. was the first to notice Yazykov’s literary gift. Voeikov and published his poems in "Competitor".
In 1822 Yazykov, at the insistence of his older brothers and writer A.F. Voeykova decided to continue his studies and entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Dorpat. Here he found himself in his element, immersed in the study of Western European and Russian literature, both past and modern. Yazykov liked Dorpat life as much as possible. The students there supported the traditions of the German Bursch of the 18th century. with their riotous revelries, cheerful adventures, duels with rapiers, and drinking songs. Yazykov became an enthusiastic admirer and singer of these free and even violent morals. Not a single feast was complete without him. “In just a shirt, with a glass in his hand, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, he was poetically beautiful,” recalled the poet’s university friend. His poems were soon noticed. Delvig was looking for his poems for his “Northern Flowers”, Zhukovsky was kind to him, Pushkin was looking for an acquaintance with him, and back in 1824 he invited him, through his university friend A.N. Wulf, to his place in Mikhailovskoye.
Pushkin wrote to A.N. to Wulf:
However, in 1824 Yazykov was unable to meet with Pushkin. Their acquaintance was delayed until 1826.
In a short time, the name of Yazykov as a poet became generally known. Yazykov’s sonorous poems were memorized, set to music, and sung by the student choir. Reveling in the “freedom” of Dorpat life, Yazykov did not compromise his ardent national feelings in the least. On the contrary, in the “half-German” environment that surrounded him, these feelings became even stronger. He organized a circle of Russian students, at whose meetings they “discussed the great importance of the Slavs and the future of Russia.” For this circle, Yazykov wrote a song, beloved by many generations of Russian students, “From a country, a distant country.” Her last lines are especially eloquent:
Yazykov spent about 8 years in Dorpat, leaving there only for a short time to St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Pskov province (the famous "Trigorskoe", in the neighborhood of Pushkin). At the University of Languages, he masters the German language perfectly and studies history and political economy well. His passion for the carefree revelry of the Burshes was the main reason that Yazykov did not have time to complete his university course during all this time; during his six years of study, he was never able to prepare for the exams. In 1829, Yazykov graduated from the university without a diploma. However, Yazykov read a lot and built up a large library. Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State,” the “book of books,” opened for him the poetic world of Russian history. Admiring the deeds of his ancestors, he sang “the solemn and majestic genius of Russian antiquity” in the poem “Bayan to the Russian warrior under Dmitry Donskoy, before the famous battle of Nepryadva”:
In the unfinished poem “Ala,” Yazykov, anticipating Pushkin’s “Poltava,” sought to describe the Northern War using Livonian material, when “the transformed Russia was vigorous by the iron will of Peter.” (Pushkin took these lines as an epigraph to one of the chapters of “Arap Peter the Great.”)
In the summer of 1826, Yazykov visited his friend Wulf at the Trigorskoye estate in Pskov. Here he met and quickly became friends with Pushkin, who lived in exile next door in Mikhailovskoye. This meeting played a big role in Yazykov’s life and poetry: Pushkin, his work, his very personality, his image of a poet - all this was included in Yazykov’s poems. Pushkin spoke enthusiastically about Yazykov’s work.
It is known from the words of Gogol that when a book of Yazykov’s poems was published, Pushkin said “with annoyance”: “Why did he call them: “Poems by Yazykov”! They should just be called “hops”! A person with ordinary powers would not do anything like this; a riot of strength is needed here.” The time spent in Pushkin’s company was sincerely sung by Yazykov in the wonderful poem “Trigorskoe”, and throughout his life it was his brightest and most joyful memory. “I asked,” writes Yazykov to Wulf in 1827 on February 17, my conscience and listened to its answers - and in my whole life I do not find anything like moral and physical beauty, nothing more pleasant and worthy to shine in golden letters on the memory board of my heart - than the summer of 1826! 20 years later (1846), he remembered Trigorskoye with such enthusiasm: “Take it,” he wrote to the same Wulf (September 17, 1846), take my bow and respect to Trigorskoye to everyone and everyone who remembers me, and to all the places where I remember that time and will never forget.”
In 1829, after graduating from the University of Dorpat, he moved to Moscow, where he met the Kireyevskys, Aksakovs, Baratynskys and other writers. In Moscow, Yazykov lived in the Elagin-Kireevsky house at the Red Gate.
In the literary salon of the housewife A.P. Elagina, the poet, among the “blessed circle” of friends, found the warmth of sincere feelings he needed, spiritual communication and understanding. Pushkin often visited Yazykov here, V.F. came. Odoevsky, Baratynsky and other writers. The poet entered the Slavophile circle of the Moskovsky Vestnik.
During the years of Moscow life, almost the best poems of Yazykov were written. According to his contemporary: “The poet’s wings fluttered.” His lyre acquired new strong sounds, in which “light and heat and a fire-breathing word merged together with a powerful thought.” Pushkin said that Yazykov’s poems of the 1930s “stand on end.”
“In our dear fatherland, a person who thinks and writes must express himself not with naked discretion, but in images that are as obvious, tangible, so to speak, bodily, sensual, bright and colorful as possible,” these words of Yazykov perfectly characterize the creations of his mature poetry. One of the best is the famous poem “The Swimmer,” which has long become a favorite folk song. After the defeat of the Decembrists, the tone of his poems changed, and the fighting pathos disappeared from them. On September 12, 1831, Yazykov entered service in the Land Survey Office. Yazykov perceived his service in the office as an obstacle to his creativity. He wanted to move to the village, where he could completely devote himself to poetry writing in solitude.
In 1833, Yazykov was diagnosed with a severe disease of the spinal cord (mild symptoms appeared already in 1831), after which he retired with the rank of collegiate registrar. He leaves Moscow and lives on an estate in Simbirsk, where he collects Russian songs for P.V. Kireevsky and “enjoys,” as he himself said, “poetic laziness.” However, he was not able to retire in the village; due to his illness, Yazykov often had to travel to Moscow and Penza to see the homeopath Peterson. During the improvements, Yazykov actively takes up creativity and publishes in the Moscow Observer. On the advice of Yazykov’s doctors, in 1837 he left Russia and went for treatment to Germany in Marienbad, where he stayed for two months, bathed in water and mud, drank brunette, but there was no tangible improvement. Yazykov went to Hanau to see the famous doctor Kop, who promised to get him back on his feet; in addition, Yazykov had to visit Kreuznach and Gastein. In Hanau, Yazykov meets Gogol; and in 1842 he went with him to Italy (to Rome and Venice). Treatment abroad did not produce results. In those days when Yazykov’s health improved, the poet eagerly took up his pen. It was at this time that Yazykov wrote several elegies and the wonderful poem “To the Rhine”. The poet returned to his homeland in August 1843; his health was already hopeless.
In Moscow, Yazykov entrusted his health to his old Dorpat comrade, Professor Inozemtsev. Without leaving his apartment, he slowly faded away; The only entertainment for him was the weekly meetings of his literary acquaintances that he organized at his place. Due to his family ties and long-standing sympathies, Yazykov was especially close to the circle of Slavophiles, was carried away by the views of his friends and in 1844 attacked the Westerners with the well-known abusive message “To Not Ours,” in which all members of the Westernizing circle were declared enemies of the fatherland.
Despite a severe illness, Yazykov, according to I. Kireevsky, “... writes a lot, and his verse seems to have become even more brilliant and stronger.” In the last years of his life, Yazykov’s poetry reached that “highest state of lyricism,” Gogol argued, “which is alien to passionate movements and is a firm rise in the light of reason, the supreme triumph of spiritual sobriety.” The poem “Earthquake,” which Zhukovsky considered one of the best in Russian poetry, can serve as an example of the artistic power of the images of Yazykov’s later lyrics.
The poem was based on a medieval Byzantine legend about the origin of the prayer “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal”: about a boy taken to heaven during a terrible earthquake in Constantinople, where he heard angels who taught him a new prayer; When everyone repeated this prayer, the earthquake subsided. The poem concludes with prophetic lines:
The lines of his poem “To those not ours” sound equally prophetic for us:
The poem was published only in 1871; before that it was circulated in lists among a limited circle of people. Stung Westerners called “To Not Ours” a “denunciation in verse,” responding with poisonous parodies of Nekrasov and articles full of bile by Belinsky and Herzen. From their unkind approach, Yazykov was labeled an embittered reactionary. “...These verses did the job,” Yazykov wrote about his message, “they separated what should not have been together, separated the sheep from the goats, a great benefit!.. One can hardly call an action the spirit of the party, no matter what it is.” , against those who want to prove that they have not only the right, but also the duty to despise the Russian people, and to prove that there is a lot of corruption in them, while this corruption was born, raised and will still be born and raised by exactly what they call with your conviction!
In mid-December 1846, Yazykov caught a cold and developed a fever. The poet considered it an omen of his imminent death. It was in vain that his friends tried to disabuse him of such a sad conviction; he was unshakable, and seriously began to prepare for death: he invited the priest to perform the last duty of a Christian, made the necessary funeral orders, even appointed who to invite to his funeral, and ordered dishes for the funeral dinner. Yazykov died at six o'clock in the evening on December 26, 1846 (old style), died quietly and unnoticed. Yazykov's funeral took place in the Church of the Annunciation on Tverskaya. On December 30, the poet’s friends and relatives buried him in the Danilov Monastery.
The poet occupies a fairly prominent place among the poets of the so-called Pushkin galaxy. If his poetry does not shine with depth of thought or variety of content, then it nevertheless showed an undoubtedly bright and original talent. The correct development of Yazykov's poetic talent was hampered by his impetuous, carried away nature, easily succumbing to the impressions of the moment and incapable of sustained work; under more favorable conditions, Yazykov could probably have developed into a real artist, but he forever remained only an amateur in art, however, one who sometimes had glimpses of truly high artistic creativity. The main motives of Yazykov’s poetry - precisely those that he valued above others, proclaiming himself “the poet of joy and intoxication” - found expression in a form that is not always artistic: his bacchanalian lyricism is often too crude; Most of the poems are distinguished by unconsistent tone, sometimes by an unsuccessful choice of expressions, sometimes by the artificiality of images and comparisons. In Yazykov's poems, however, one can point out a number of excellent poetic descriptions of nature ("Kambi", "Trigorskoe" and others); then there are lyrical works, full of high animation and distinguished by great artistic decoration ("To the Poet", "Earthquake", "Swimmers", some arrangement of psalms, etc.), which force us to give Yazykov an honorable place among our lyricists of the first half of the 19th century. Unfortunately, there are very few such works in Yazykov’s overall literary heritage. Collections of Yazykov's poems were published by himself in 1833, 1844 and 1845; the later edition, edited by Perevlessky, St. Petersburg, 1858, is unsatisfactory. Wed. biography of V.I. Shenrok in the "Bulletin of Europe" 1897, No. 11 and 12, and the works of Belinsky.
(1803 - 1846)Yazykov Nikolai Mikhailovich (1803 - 1846), poet. Born on March 4 (16 NS) in the Siberian province into a wealthy landowner family. He received a good education at home, which allowed him to successfully study at the age of 11 at the Mining Cadet Corps and then at the Institute of Railway Engineers in St. Petersburg (1814-20). During these years he writes a lot of poetry.
To continue his education, he went to Dorpat, where he studied at the university's Faculty of Philosophy for seven years (1822-29). Masters the German language perfectly, acquires deep knowledge of history and political economy. During his visits to St. Petersburg, he first met Delvig and Ryleev, and later Pushkin. Yazykov’s poems are published in various magazines and newspapers. The years spent in Dorpat are the most fruitful period of his work. He quickly gained a reputation as an original poet, an exponent of the views of progressive noble youth. His student songs “We are not looking for officials by crawling”, “Hearts are on the altar of freedom”, “Our mind is not a slave to other people’s minds”, etc., elegies “Proud freedom is an inspiration!”, “The people’s thunderstorm is still silent.. ".
In the summer of 1826, at the invitation of Pushkin, Yazykov visited Mikhailovskoye. This meeting was reflected in beautiful poems: “Evening”, “Trigorskoe”, two messages “To P.A. Osinova”.
In 1829, Yazykov left Dorpat due to a serious illness and moved to Moscow, where he met the Kireevskys, Aksakovs, Baratynskys and other writers, and entered their circle. After the defeat of the Decembrists, the tonality of his poems changes, and the fighting pathos disappears from them. After the poem “Swimmer” (“Our sea is unsociable...”, 1829), full of courage and vigor, he moved on to condemning the past (“Ay!”, 1831), and at the end of his life even to attacks on Chaadaev, Herzen (“ To those not ours", 1844).
In 1831 he entered service in the Boundary Office, but retired in 1833. In 1838, as a result of a sharp deterioration in health, he went abroad for treatment. Returns in 1843 and lives in Moscow. Two of his poetry collections were published (1844,1845).
December 26, 1846 (January 7, 1847 n.s.) N. Yazykov died.
Brief biography from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.
Origin
Born into a landowner family in Simbirsk, his father was an ensign Mikhail Petrovich Yazykov(1774-1836), mother - Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Ermolova (1777-1831). Nikolai's sister Ekaterina later became the wife of the philosopher and poet A. S. Khomyakov. In his 12th year, Nikolai was sent to the Corps of Mining Engineers in St. Petersburg, and after completing the course there he entered the engineering corps; but not feeling a calling to study mathematics and being carried away by poetry, he decided, on the advice of a professor of literature at the University of Dorpat, the famous writer A.F. Voeikov, to move to this university (1820). In 1819 he made his debut in print (on the pages of “Competitor of Education and Charity”).
Student years
Studying at the ethical-political department of the Faculty of Philosophy in Dorpat lasted 7 years, from 1822 to 1829. His fascination with “traditional feasts and cupids for German students” was the main reason that Yazykov did not manage to complete his university course during all this time. Thanks to the conditions of the free and cheerful life of the students of that time, Yazykov creates in his poems an original, bright and festive world of young freedom and love of freedom - a new solemn dithyrambic style of “light poetry”. His Anacreontic poems in praise of wine and fun were soon noticed by Zhukovsky. Delvig looked for his poems for his “Northern Flowers”, and Pushkin invited him to Mikhailovskoye.
From Dorpat the poet only left for a short time to Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1826 he stayed in the Pskov province, in Trigorskoye with Praskovya Osipova, mother of A. Wulf. Here he met with Pushkin, who was serving exile. At this time, the famous poem “Trigorskoye” was written. Subsequently, Yazykov recalled this trip with pleasure in a heartfelt poetic message to Arina Rodionovna.
Simbirsk years
In 1829, having accumulated debts in Dorpat, Yazykov moved to Moscow, to the house of his friends Elagin, ostensibly to prepare for exams at Kazan University, but in the early 1830s he moved to his Simbirsk village, Yazykov, where he lived for several years. “enjoying,” as he himself said, “poetic laziness.” In September 1833, A.S. Pushkin visited here on his way to Orenburg and back.
While staying in the village, Yazykov, through his future son-in-law (sister's husband) A. S. Khomyakov and nephew D. A. Valuev, begins to get close to the Slavophiles. In 1831, together with P.V. Kireevsky, he began collecting materials on Russian folk poetry. Also during this period, I became interested in homeopathy and began translating works on this topic from German.
On the waters
“His health, undermined by Dorpat excesses, began to fail him very early.” In the autumn of 1836, his ailments that had been weakened for a while - tapeworm, spinal cord disease (neurosyphilis), etc., which began to progress so quickly, resumed with renewed vigor that the poet soon died. could walk upright and in the spring of the next year he was forced to leave for treatment in Moscow, where P.V. Kireevsky accompanied him. The famous doctor Inozemtsev, having examined Yazykov, advised him to go abroad as soon as possible.
Kireyevsky accompanied him first to Marienbad, then to Hanau, Kreuznach and Gastein. In Hanau, Yazykov became close to Gogol, who in 1842 took him with him to Venice and Rome. Gogol called Yazykov his favorite poet: “It was not for nothing that he got the name Yazykov. He speaks his language like an Arab with his wild horse, and even seems to boast of his power.” The great writer called Yazykov’s “Earthquake” “the best Russian poem.” Their friendship at first was ardent and sincere, although it was expressed mainly in the sympathetic attitude of each of them to the talent of the other, the religiosity characteristic of both of them and similar bodily ailments. Due to minor everyday squabbles, they broke up, but continued to correspond.
Recent years
In 1843, Yazykov, homesick, returned to Moscow in a completely hopeless state. Without leaving his apartment, he slowly faded away; The only entertainment for him was the weekly meetings of his literary acquaintances that he organized at his place. Under the influence of his friends, having finally switched to the position of Slavophilism, he criticized the Westernizers in a rather rude manner, and in 1844 he attacked them with an abusive message “To Not Ours” (circulated in the lists, published in 1871), in which all members of the Westernizing circle were declared enemies of the fatherland. In response, Nekrasov in verse, and Belinsky and Herzen in prose, sharply condemned Yazykov, and he was labeled a reactionary. As Yazykov himself wrote:
... These verses did the job, separated what should not have been together, separated the sheep from the goats, great benefit!.. One can hardly call the spirit of the party an action, whatever it may be, against those who want to prove that they have not only the right, but also the duty to despise the Russian people, and to prove that there is a lot of corruption in them, while this corruption was born, raised and will continue to be born and nurtured by what they call their conviction!
Demise
Yazykov died on December 26, 1846, single and was buried in the Danilov Monastery under the same tombstone with his nephew D. A. Valuev. Not far from his grave, Gogol and Khomyakov were later interred. In the 1930s, all three were reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery.
After the death of Nikolai Mikhailovich Yazykov, 2,325 books from his personal library were transferred by his brothers Peter and Alexander to the fund of the Karamzin Public Library in Simbirsk.
D. Mirsky about Yazykov
Pushkin said that the Castalian spring from which Yazykov drank flows not with water, but with champagne. The almost physical intoxication produced by Yazykov's poems is well known to his readers. His poetry is cold and foams like champagne or a mineral spring. The stunning - physical or nervous - energy of his poetry is unparalleled. It’s not hard to imagine what he made of a subject like “Waterfall” (1828), but more peaceful poems about nature (“Trigorskoe” or poems about Lake Peipus) just as burst with sparkling life in their cold crystal splendor.
His best and most beautiful poems must be taken precisely as purely verbal splendor: such are the famous “Earthquake” (1844), where linguistic excess, strictly directed and purified, reaches a special brilliance; and perhaps the best lines of all (“To the Rhine,” 1840), where he greets the German river on behalf of the Volga and all its tributaries; the enumeration of these tributaries, a continuous catalog of fifty lines, is one of the greatest triumphs of Russian verbal art and an unsurpassed record of long breathing: the reading of these verses is the most difficult and, if successful, the most glorious achievement of the reciter.
Editions
- Poems by N. Yazykov. - St. Petersburg: type. Widow Pluchard with her son, 1833. - X, 308 s.
- New poems by N. Yazykov. - Moscow: Univ. typ., 1845. - , II, IV, 332 s.
- Poems by Nikolai Mikhailovich Yazykov. - Moscow: Univ. type. (M. Katkov), 1887. - , IV, 136 p.
- Lyrical poems: From the introduction. Art. Vadim Shershenevich / [N.M. Languages]. - Moscow: Univers. b-ka, 1916. - 171 p.
- Complete collection of poems. Ed., intro. article and comments by M.K. Azadovsky. Moscow - Leningrad: Academia, 1934.
- Collection of poems. Entry article, ed. and notes by M.K. Azadovsky. Leningrad: Soviet writer, 1948 (Poet's Library. Large series).
- Poems. Fairy tales. Poems. Dramatic scenes. Letters. Compilation, preparation of text, introduction. article and notes by I. D. Glikman. Moscow - Leningrad: Goslitizdat, 1959.
- Complete collection of poems. Entry article, preparation of text and notes by K. K. Buchmeyer. Moscow - Leningrad: Soviet writer, 1964 (Poet's Library. Large series).
Among the poets of Pushkin's circle, N. M. Yazykov was closest to the poetry of the revolutionary romantics. A talented and original poet, he expressed in his own way the love of freedom of the progressive youth of the Decembrist era. But this was only in the first period of his literary activity. Since the late 20s, a sharp change has been brewing in Yazykov’s worldview and creativity, which makes him the “bard” of the reactionary camp.
The original theme of linguistic romanticism was also manifested in the originality of his poetic speech. The features of a “high”, civil style, characteristic of the poetry of the Decembrists, were characteristic of historical ballads, friendly messages, and sometimes even Yazykov’s elegies, which contained the poet’s thoughts on issues of socio-political life. But contemporaries already noted the striking originality of the linguistic style. N.V. Gogol said this perfectly: “He didn’t get the name of Tongues for nothing. He speaks his tongue like an Arab with his wild horse, and seems to boast of his power. Wherever the period begins, whether from the head or the tail, he will bring it out picturesquely, conclude and close it so that you will stop amazed” (VIII, 387). V. G. Belinsky pointed out that “with his bold and harsh words and turns of phrase, Yazykov greatly contributed to the dissolution of the Puritan shackles that lay in language and phraseology”; the critic had in mind the “vulgar moralism and cloying elegiac tearfulness” that distinguished the poems of Zhukovsky’s epigones (V, 561). Yazykov’s stylistic sharpness manifested itself in unusual metaphorization, in the combination of words of various semantic and stylistic series. About his poetry he wrote:
The development of the most unique genre of his lyrics was associated with the everyday environment in which Yazykov, a student at the University of Dorpat, spent his youth. These are student songs, full of youthful enthusiasm and bold freethinking. Just as Denis Davydov, based on his life impressions, introduced the image of a “hussar” into literature, Yazykov created the lyrical character of a reveler-student, who, however, behind external bravado hides a love for his homeland and freedom. “Hearts to the altar of freedom!” – with a glass of wine in his hands, the poet called on his student friends (“We love noisy feasts...”, 1823). These songs, set to music, were sung in a circle of Russian students, organized on the initiative of Yazykov in opposition to German student corporations. Later songs gained wide popularity in the circles of democratic youth: “From a country, a distant country...” (1827) and “Swimmer” (1829). Yazykov's student love of freedom lacked the consciousness and consistency of the noble revolutionaries who had embarked on the path of struggle against tsarism. But the Dorpat student also wrote anti-government poems, which became famous in the lists (the song “Happy to whom fate has given ...”, 1823; a message of 1823 to “N.D. Kiselev”, published by A.I. Herzen in “Polar Star”) .
The historical ballad genre, popular among revolutionary romantics, occupies a significant place in Yazykov’s poetry. Yazykov is close to K.F. Ryleev and other Decembrist poets both in the choice and interpretation of historical themes. These were “holy battles for freedom,” that is, events of the liberation struggle of the Russian people, shown in the light of the socio-political tasks facing the noble revolutionaries. Unlike the Decembrists, who chose the theme of free Novgorod, Yazykov wrote with special love about the struggle of the Russian people with the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. “Song of the Bard during the reign of the Tatars in Russia” (1823), “Accordion to the Russian warrior under Dimitri Donskoy, before the famous battle of Nepryadva” (1823), “Evpatiy” (1824) - these historical ballads of Yazykov were written and published simultaneously with the thoughts Ryleeva. The image of the ancient Russian folk singer, popular in romantic poetry, indicates that Yazykov, like Ryleev, connected the genre of historical ballad with national folk traditions.
This flowed from Yazykov’s general creative principles, which were closer to the aesthetics of the Decembrists. Yazykov declared himself a supporter of nationally distinctive content and form of literature. He recognized Russian folk art as one of the sources of this. On this basis, he had a negative attitude towards the elegiac romanticism of V. A. Zhukovsky and promoted high civic poetry. It is characteristic that Yazykov, like the Decembrists, did not understand the realism of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, in the first chapters of which the “inspired poet” (A.S. Pushkin’s words about Yazykov) saw “lack of inspiration” and “rhymed prose”
A kind of generalization in which the young Yazykov expressed his attitude towards the Decembrists were the heartfelt lines of a short poem (1826) dedicated to the memory of the executed Ryleev and his comrades:
