The Presidential Library’s new collection marking the 240th anniversary of the birth of Vasily Zhukovsky, poet and mentor of Alexander II

Russian romantic poet, friend of Pushkin and Karamzin, mentor of the imperial family and author of the words of the anthem of the Russian Empire “God Save the Tsar!” Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky was born on February 9, 1783 in the village of Mishenskoye of Tula province.

On the eve of the 240th anniversary of the birth of the poet, the Presidential Library’s portal features a new collection Vasily Zhukovsky (1783–1852), which includes his works, diaries, correspondence, as well as archival documents.

The future poet and educator of Alexander II was the illegitimate son of the landowner Afanasy Bunin and a captive Turkish woman, and received his patronymic and surname from his adoptive father, the impoverished nobleman Andrei Zhukovsky. Fate favored the boy: after the death of his own father, his stepmother raised him as her own son and tried to give him a good education. Vasily Ogarkov writes about this in his biographical essay Vasily Zhukovsky, his Life and Literary Activity (1894), available on the Presidential Library’s portal. In addition, the child was enrolled in the Astrakhan hussar regiment so that he could receive a title of nobility and study at a private boarding school, at the Tula Folk School and then, from 1797, at the Moscow Noble University Boarding School. While studying at a boarding school at the university, Zhukovsky begins to write and becomes one of the best students.

Zhukovsky entered literature rapidly - with the publication in Vestnik Evropy of his translation of the elegy of the English sentimentalist Gray Rural Cemetery, and soon became the editor of the magazine. Being already a well-known poet, he does not leave his translation activity and introduces his compatriots to the works of Byron, Goethe, Schiller, Lafontaine and others, and in his declining years he translates Virgil and Homer.

In 1815 he entered the Arzamas literary society, and soon began court service, which lasted 25 years.

The poet becomes a reader under the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, and then a teacher of Russian for Princess Charlotte, the future wife of Nicholas I Alexandra Feodorovna. Later, he was asked to study Princess Friederike Charlotte Maria, who arrived in St. Petersburg to marry Grand Prince Mikhail Pavlovich.

When Nicholas I ascended the throne, the question arose of mentors for his son Alexander. The choice fell on General Karl Merder, the poet Vasily Zhukovsky and the priest Gerasim Pavsky. The Presidential Library’s collections contain  publications that focus on how Vasily Andreevich conducted his activity.

The collection of the Imperial Russian Historical Society Years of Teaching of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsarevich Alexander Nikolayevich, now the Emperor Sovereign (1880) features an excerpt from Zhukovsky's letter to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, sent in October 1826.

The book The Life and Poetry of Vasily Zhukovsky (1883) by Karl Seydlitz, available at the access centers of the Presidential Library, contains a letter from Zhukovsky to his niece Anna Sontag about the lofty work to which he was called.

For the young prince, Zhukovsky developed an individual training program consisting of three stages and covering the age from 8 to 20 years. The digitized curriculum is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

Zhukovsky saw the main task in education in general and teaching in particular in education for virtue according to the book The History of the Reign of Emperor Alexander II.

Zhukovsky himself taught the Grand Prince Russian language, grammar, history, physics and chemistry. Two boys were invited to the palace as comrades to the prince - the quiet and modest, according to contemporaries, Joseph Vielgorsky and the lively Alexander Patkul. Alexander studied with his comrades and spent his free time.

Zhukovsky followed various lessons with attention, making sure that an enlightened person who respects science came out of his pupil. He himself carefully selected books for reading for the heir to the throne. Some of them the young man had to read alone, some they read together, so that later they could discuss what they had read. At the insistence of Tsarevich Alexander Zhukovsky, military disciplines began to be taught only from the age of 11, and not from 9, as was customary before.

When Alexander reached the age of majority, it was decided to introduce him to Russia. Two thirds of 1837 were devoted to the journey of the heir to his homeland. After that, Vasily Andreevich accompanied his pupil on a trip to Europe. Zhukovsky compiled a guide to facilitate the selection of the most interesting places during the trip. It used to be told in the History of the Reign of Emperor Alexander II that the prince with his tutors would stay with the governor in the house or with a rich landowner, and everything would seem fine and smooth to him. The teachers immediately take him somewhere to a dark hut, to see how the poor man lives. During the trip, Zhukovsky and the Prince visited Kazan University, whose rector at that time was the Russian mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky, met with the exiled Decembrists in Tobolsk, and both sent letters to the Emperor asking for their pardon. The European part of the trip ended with Alexander's acquaintance with his future wife, 15-year-old Princess Maria.

Contemporaries spoke of Vasily Zhukovsky as an honest and noble man. This was proven by many of his actions. Using his influence at court, Zhukovsky helped to buy out Taras Shevchenko from the serfs, tried to help the exiled Decembrists, asked for Pushkin more than once, and after his death he saved the poet's archive and helped his family. But one of the main merits of Zhukovsky to Fatherland is called by biographers his role in the education and formation of the views of Alexander II, who, thanks to his policy, was called the Tsar-Liberator by the people.