Puppeteer Nestor Vasilyevich: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Puppeteer Nestor Vasilyevich is a popular domestic writer and poet. He is also known as a playwright and translator. Active in the first half of the 19th century.

At the beginning of the journey

Puppeteer Nestor Vasilyevich was born in St. Petersburg. He was born in 1809. In 1821, the hero of our article entered the Nizhyn gymnasium, where he studied for 8 years. According to the results of training, he did not receive a certificate, as he was accused in the case of freethinking. It began shortly after the Decembrist uprising in 1825.

Kukolnik Nestor Vasilyevich began studying literature when he was still in high school. But his very first works, unfortunately, have not been preserved. They were seized during the investigation of the case of freethinking. He continued to write after he moved to Vilna. There he settled with his brother Pavel, who worked as a professor at the university. Kukolnik Nestor Vasilievich himself got a job at a local gymnasium, where he taught teenagers Russian literature. In Polish, he published a course on Russian grammar.

Moving to St. Petersburg became a landmark in his life. The hero of our article moved to the capital in 1831. Here came the flowering of his literaryactivities. Popularity for Nestor the Dollmaker came in 1834. Then his play en titled "The Hand of the Most High Fatherland Saved" was staged at the Alexandrinsky Theater. The drama was critically acclaimed and even Emperor Nicholas I liked it.

Art of the Dollmaker

The creations of Nestor Kukolnik still captivate readers. It is interesting that he wrote in various genres. These are dramatic plays, and adventure novels, and historical novels, and poetry, and art criticism. The hero of our article even tried himself as a composer.

In 1838, several of his works of art criticism were published. His dramatic creations are considered by modern critics as a transitional stage from the domestic historical drama of the early 19th century to the second half of the century. At the same time, the Dollmaker is considered one of the founders of the dramatic poem. He was the first among Russian writers to use motifs and techniques that later found their way into the works of many of his colleagues: Marina Tsvetaeva, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy.

Connoisseurs of his work claim that obvious parallels can be traced between some of the works of Nestor Kukolnik and Tsvetaeva's well-known dramatic cycle "Romance". The author is also considered the founder of the historical novel genre in Russia. His experience was later used in his works by Alexandre Dumas and many other contemporaries. Also, the innovation of the Puppeteer lies in the fact that he was one of the first to startto develop a love-adventure genre in the spirit of the Frenchman Eugene Sue, the founder of the criminal sensational genre in popular literature, and Paul de Kock, whose name has been associated with frivolous literature for many years.

At the same time, in his books, Nestor Kukolnik often refers to stories from foreign history. This can be considered as the first historical and biographical works that were developed in the research novels of Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Yuri Tynyanov, Olga Forsh.

Collaboration with composers

Being at the peak of fame and popularity, the Puppeteer was close to the famous Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, as well as the painter Karl Bryullov. Almost all researchers of creative biography have recognized his influence on such writers as Mikhail S altykov-Shchedrin, Taras Shevchenko and Ivan Nikitin. The puppeteer was one of the co-authors of the libretto for several operas at once. These are "Life for the Tsar" and "Ruslan and Lyudmila". Composers set many of his poems to music, and the well-known romances turned out. He wrote music to texts by Kukolnik and Mikhail Glinka. Well-known and loved by many are the romances "The Lark" and "A Passing Song". Nestor Kukolnik collaborated with 27 composers in total.

On duty

At the same time, the Puppeteer earned not only by literary work. In 1843 he began to serve in the War Office. In this work, he regularly traveled on business trips, visited many Russian provinces. Especially in those thatlocated in the European part of the country. I visited dozens of cities from Astrakhan to Chisinau on working visits.

The puppeteer didn't give up literature at all, but the service took a lot of time and effort, so he began to write much less than before. In particular, the hero of our article was studying the prospects for the mining industry in the Donbas region. His work had a significant impact on the economic development of the entire region.

Private life

In 1843, the hero of our article left his literary career and went to work. An important event happened in the biography of Nestor Kukolnik - he married Sophia Amalia von Friesen. She was a German Lutheran. The woman stayed with him until the very end of her life, sharing all the worries and difficulties, went on long business trips.

Before meeting his future wife, the Dollmaker suffered two love tragedies, according to biographers. He had his first serious relationship with Ekaterina Van der Fleet. For lovers, everything ended quite unexpectedly. The girl's father simply ordered her to marry Admiral Mikhail Lazarev. After this relationship, Nestor Kukolnik began to write lyric poetry. In them, his beloved is hiding under the name Lenora. Because of this fact, many critics began to accuse him of excessive artificiality and artificiality of images. The poet was especially strongly criticized by Panaev, whose literary remarks still serve as an assessment of all the work of the hero of our article.

His next lover was Maria Tolstaya. The details of this romantic story are unknown. Judging by the Dollmaker's poems, this relationship also caused him a deep spiritual wound.

During the Crimean War

In 1853, the Crimean War found the hero of our article in Novocherkassk. He was seconded to the headquarters of the Don Cossacks. The puppeteer was in charge of supplying the army. I have achieved some success in this. In 1857 he ended his career. He retired with the rank of State Councilor. He did not return to the capital, he settled in Taganrog. Here he served for another ten years. The puppeteer began to actively engage in social activities. He carried out the instructions of the Taganrog City Society. His work was of great importance in the fate of the whole of Taganrog.

What did the Puppeteer do in Taganrog?

This man justified the need for the emergence of university education on the Don. He proposed to open a university in Taganrog itself. True, he failed to implement this project, but his efforts influenced the opening of a university in Novorossiysk in 1865.

It was the Dollmaker who lobbied for the appearance of a city newspaper in Taganrog. After that, their own media appeared in Rostov-on-Don and Odessa. In 1865, the hero of our article began to lead a working group that was engaged in choosing a railway route to Taganrog from Kharkov. This work was crowned with success - in 1868, Emperor Alexander II approved the relevant contracts for the constructionhighways.

Confrontation with the Cossacks

Also, Kukolnik repeatedly raised the issue of the need to take measures for the environmental protection of the Taganrog Bay, which belongs to the Sea of Azov. At the same time, he strenuously sought to change the administrative-territorial structure of the Azov Territory through the creation of the Taganrog province. In this matter, he met with fierce resistance from the local Cossacks, so it was not possible to solve this problem.

Among the merits of Kukolnik, it is necessary to note the judicial reform, as a result of which the District Court appeared in Taganrog. This happened shortly after his death, in 1869. Many of his initiatives caused a storm of discontent among the local nobility. Especially after he ridiculed them in his drama called "Hof Junker". The work was banned by personal order of Emperor Alexander II.

Death of the Dollmaker

Nestor Kukolnik died at the end of 1868 while preparing for the theater. He was 59 years old. The poet was buried in Taganrog. The grave of the hero of our article has a sad story. In 1931, the ashes of Nestor and his wife were desecrated. The robbers, trying to find jewelry in the coffins, opened them and threw the remains on the ground. In 1966, the city executive committee of Taganrog issued a decree on the allotment of a land plot to the Krasny Kotelshchik plant, on this territory the Dubki grove was located. The Dollmaker's house was destroyed by bulldozers. The remains of the writer were actually mixed with mud. After the work was done, they were mixed withconstruction debris.