A voice of Catherine the Great’s century Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin — in historical sources of the Presidential Library

On July 14, 2017, will turn 274 years from a birth of the Russian poet and statesman Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin. There are numerous historical evidences providing extensive coverage of his life, creative work, and service for the benefit of the Russian Empire on the Presidential Library website. Among these are some lifetime editions of Derzhavin's works, criticism, the memoirs of his contemporaries about him, correspondence, and research work, including those concerning his state activities.

A destiny of Gavrila Romanovich was not easy from his early years: from his very childhood the boy showed a talent to drawing and the plastic arts, and owing to his talent, he was even enlisted as a junior in the Engineering Corps in St. Petersburg. He went to the capital, but not for learning, but for serving his native land: it turned out that by some accident, Gavrila Derzhavin, a descendant of the Bagrim’s Tatar family, but now a poor and an infamous child of noble family didn’t enrolled in military service as a kid, and therefore now Should serve as a soldier in the Preobrazhensky regiment. So, beginning from 1762 a military period of future poet's life begins.

A detailed biography of Gabriel Romanovich is given by Y. K. Grot in his comprehensive work Life of Derzhavin according to his writings and letters and historical documents. An electronic copy of this three-volume edition, published in 1883, can be found on the Presidential Library website. All steps taken by Derzhavin on his career ladder from the soldier to the officer (and later to the Governor-General's rank) are described in this work, and the documentary evidences also support these. In particular, in the report of Prince Golitsyn to Count Panin dated September 7, 1774, is stated: “And now, I have the honor to inform your Excellency of the information I received from the lieutenant Derzhavin on the following: this lieutenant on the 30th of this August with gathered five hundred peasants marched directly on Uzen and, continuing his march for three days, caught up to a thousand Kirghiz-Kasak predators along the upper reaches of a Karaman River and broke the others here.” Y. K. Grot dedicated to the military service of the poet another book, an electronic copy of digitized edition of 1861 entitled The work and the correspondence of Derzhavin during the Pugachev revolt is in the Presidential Library stck.

Gavrila Derzhavin retired in 1777, and then began the next stage of his life, dedicated to public service. In this practice he also made tremendous career, having made it to the Minister of Justice of the Russian Empire.

All this time, Derzhavin does not abandon his studies of poetry, which he was interested still being in military service. “In the days of Catherine the Great writers loved to serve, while the officials tried to write. The Empress in person had given them an example, and such a great!” — says E. A. Salias de Tournemir in his released in 1885 book A poet-vicar. At the same time he notes: “An entire life of our immortal poet and high official was devoted to the service and the poetry. He was a zealous official and even put his public service above his literary pursuits.

In 1783, Derzhavin became widely known for his “Felitsa” ode, dedicated to Catherine II. And in the literary field he also achieved success, his fame with the years just grew. Derzhavin's lyrical poems were put to music. Public also appreciated his sharp satire on court bribe takers and bureaucrats. Owing to Derzhavin, Russian lyrical poetry of the eighteenth century gained considerable development, rhetoric began to give way to real poetry, not alien to the figurative folk language. Beginning with Felitsa, Derzhavin's odes are a “poetic chronicle” in which historical figures, all the most important events of the time pass before the reader. V. Pokrovsky, the author of The Historical Anthology, says: “His odes are as brilliant as the century he speaks about; they are full of great paintings, like people, who created these events, are picturesque. His poetry is a modern sensation in which he himself could not give an account, and which is therefore often derived an artistic finishing touch.”