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Birthday anniversary of Innokenty Annensky, poet, translator, literary critic
August 20 (1st September), 1855 in Omsk, in the family of high official was born Innocent Annensky - poet, translator, literary critic, teacher.
In 1860, Annensky family moved to St. Petersburg. Having changed several classical schools, Innocent passed the examination without attending lectures to obtain a school leaving certificate and in 1875 entered History, Language and Literature Department of St. Petersburg University. At the University of Annensky studied comparative linguistics and the history of the Russian language under the guidance of Sreznevsky, mastered fourteen languages, including Sanskrit and Hebrew.
Having graduated in 1879, he began teaching and did not stop almost until his death: he taught ancient languages at F. F. Bychkov classical school and Pavlov Institute, the theory of literature at Bestuzhev Courses, Greek literature at N. N. Rayev’s courses. In 1891, Innocent Annensky was appointed director of a private educational institution Pavel Galagan College in Kiev, in 1893 - the director of the 8th of the gymnasium for men in St. Petersburg, in 1896 - Nicholas Gymnasium in Tsarskoye Selo. Among students of Annensky in Nicholas Gymnasium were a poet N. Ss Gumilev and art critic N. N. Punin.
Annensky begins his literary work in 1870. He started to write poetry, but made no attempt to publish it. From 1880s Annensky published his scientific reviews and articles on philology and pedagogy. In early 1890's, Annensky started to translate Euripides' tragedies, which he finished by the end of life. "Russian School" journal published his articles on the works of Russian authors: Gogol, Lermontov and Goncharov, etc. These articles are usually called "the critical prose," because, while distinguishing by in-depth analysis of literary works, they are themselves of a high artistic quality.
Original dramatic works by Annensky appeared only in the beginning of 20th century. Among them – tragedies on the topics of mythology of the antiquity (“Melanippe-philosopher” (1901), “King Ixion” (1902), “Laodamia” (1906)).
In 1904 “Silent songs” collected poems was published, after his death – “Cypress box” (1910) and “Posthumous poems” (1923).
On November 30 (December 13), 1909 I. Annensky died suddenly from a cardiac arrest.
The work of Innocent Fedorovich influenced many Russian poets. Poets-acmeists considered him their teacher; Annenskiy’s poetic experimentations were followed by B. L. Pasternak, O. E. Mandelstam, V. V. Mayakovsky, V. V. Khlebnikov, A. A. Akhmatova.
Lit.: Анненский И. Ф. Стихотворения и трагедии. Л., 1990; Иннокентий Анненский: Открытый цифровой информационный ресурс / Выграненко М. А., 2005-2013. URL: http://annensky.lib.ru/index.htm; Петрова Г. В. Творчество Иннокентия Анненского: Уч. пособие. Великий Новгород, 2002.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: