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Birth of the Russian poet, fabulist, journalist Ivan Krylov
On February 2 (13), 1769 in Moscow, the poet, fabulist, journalist Ivan Andreevich Krylov was born into the family of army officer Andrei Prokhorovich Krylov (1738–1778) and Maria Alekseevna (1750–1788), whose fables won nationwide love and recognition.
In 1774, during the Pugachev uprising, A. P. Krylov commanded the defence of the Yaitsk fortress, while his 5-year-old son Ivan and his mother were in besieged Orenburg. Ivan Krylov’s memories of his experience were based on Alexander Pushkin’s “History of the Pugachev Rebellion”. In 1775, the father retired and the family moved to Tver, where they lived in poverty. Ivan Krylov did not receive a systematic education. The Tver landowners Lvov, in whose house he served as a footman, allowed him to attend their children’s home lessons. Krylov made up for the lack of education on his own: he read a lot, studied foreign languages, drew and played the violin. In 1778, after the death of his father, he entered the service as a sub-clerk at the Kalyazin Zemstvo Court, then at the Tver Magistrate.
In 1782 he moved to St. Petersburg, served as a clerk in the Treasury Chamber (1783–1787) and the Mining Expedition (1787–1788). He became interested in literary activities: in 1783 he wrote (published in 1869) the comic opera “The Coffee House” ridiculing the superstitions and rude morals of provincial landowners. The tragedy “Philomela” (1786), the comic opera “The Mad Family” (1786), the prose comedies “The Writer in the Hallway” (1786) and “The Pranksters” (late 1787 or early 1788) were published in the publication “Russian Theatre...” . G. R. Derzhavin provided patronage to the aspiring writer.
Disappointed in the opportunity to see his plays on stage, in 1789 he published 8 issues of the satirical magazine “Mail of Spirits...”, in which he acted as a continuer of the satirical traditions of N. I. Novikov and D. I. Fonvizin, and did not shy away from topical political allusions and satire "on faces". The publication was banned by censorship. In 1791, together with other writers, he founded a printing company on shares “Krylov Sotovarishchi”, which began publishing the magazines “Spectator” (1792) and “St. Petersburg Mercury” (1793). However, the publications were not successful; Ivan Krylov retired from journalism and lived in the provinces.
In 1806 he finally settled in St. Petersburg, was in the service of the Mint (1808–1810), and from 1812 to 1841 served in the Imperial Public Library. During this period, he began to seriously engage in writing fables, which brought him well-deserved fame. Krylov's fables became the result and pinnacle of the development of this genre in Russian literature. Their characteristic feature was the presence of a second semantic plan, calling into question the directly expressed moral teaching. The dominance of the poetic principle over the didactic principle determined the wide popularity of Krylov’s fables, making them the property of both children’s and “adult” literature. The lines of Krylov became proverbs, catchphrases. Alexander Pushkin spoke of the fabulist with respect, calling him “a truly people’s poet”.
In 1809, the first separate edition of Krylov’s fables was published. The final collection, which became canonical, in 9 books (197 fables) was published by Krylov in 1843. In 1838, a solemn honoring of Ivan Krylov took place, during which in the welcoming verse of P. A. Vyazemsky “Song in anniversary day of I. A. Krylov” the phrase “grandfather Krylov” was used for the first time.
Krylov died on November 9 (21), 1844 in St. Petersburg. He was buried on November 13 (25), 1844 at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1855, a monument to Ivan Krylov by P. K. Klodt was unveiled in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg, which became the first monument to the writer in the capital.
Лит.: Гордин М. А. Жизнь И. Крылова. М., 1985; Коровин В. Л. Крылов Иван Андреевич // Большая российская энциклопедия. Электронная версия (2023). Режим доступа: https://old.bigenc.ru/literature/text/2638096; Русские писатели и поэты. Краткий биографический словарь. М., 2000; Шикман А. П. Деятели отечественной истории. Биографический справочник. М., 1997.
Based on the Presidential Library's materials: