Creative path and biography of Fet Athanasius, Russian poet

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

Afanasy Fet, whose biography and work will be discussed below, is a very interesting person. His fate, which from the outside seems carefree and easy, is actually full of difficult episodes. And even the birth of the poet, his origin and sonship was shrouded in mystery for a long time.

Backstory

Fet's biography, however strange it may sound, began long before the birth of the poet. In 1818, in distant Darmstadt, a young German girl, Charlotte-Elisabeth Becker, was legally married to a 29-year-old local court assessor, Johann Föth (Foeth). A year later, the couple had a daughter, Carolina. But the husband got into debt, began to mistreat his wife. How Charlotte met Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin in Darmstadt, who at that time was forty-five, is silent in the documents. What is clear is that on September 18, 1820, this couple crossed the Russian border. Two months later, on November 21 (December 3, according to a new style), a son, Athanasius, was born to Elizaveta Petrovna Fet, who converted to Orthodoxy.

Childhood

What happened next? Poet Fet, whose biographybegan so scandalously, was recorded in the church metric book of the village of Novoselki (this is the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province) as the son of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. Until the age of 14, the boy bore this surname. Judging by the letters of his mother, who wrote to her brother Ernst in Darmstadt, his stepfather took care of Athanasius as a blood son.

The couple had three more children, two of whom died in infancy. Athanasius left only two sisters: the elder Karolina Fet and the younger Lyubov Shenshina. In 1824, Afanasy's blood father married the caregiver of his eldest daughter and completely deleted his son from his will.

The "blot" of the bastard

When the boy was 14 years old, the secret of his origin was revealed, and he turned from a Russian citizen into a “Hessendarmstadt subject” Athanasius Fet. The poet went through this very hard and all his life he sought the return of the Shenshin surname. He succeeded only in 1873. And Fet's creative biography began in a private boarding school for German boys "Krimmer" in Vyru (modern Estonia). There he developed a passion for poetry and wrote his first poems.

Awakening Talent

However, Afanasy Fet did not immediately choose the creative path. In 1838, on the advice of his parents, he entered the University of Moscow in order to become a lawyer. But cramming laws, acts and various decrees was too tough for Athanasius, and he transferred to the department of history and philology. The first collection of poems came out when Fetsat on a university bench, in 1840. He published his works in several magazines (these are "Moskvityanin", and "Notes of the Fatherland", and others). After a short military service, he was awarded the rank of officer. After the death of her beloved Maria Lazich, the biography of Fet A. A. has changed. He decided to pursue a military career.

Glory arrives

Already the first collections of poems were received favorably by Russian critics. He becomes a member of the literary circles of venerable writers, gets acquainted with Goncharov, Nekrasov, Turgenev and others. In the 1850s, he became close to the editors of the Sovremennik magazine. In 1857, the poet married Maria Botkina, the sister of a famous doctor, retired and settled in Moscow. Further, the biography of Fet A. made a sharp turn towards servility to the emperor. Athanasius broke with the Sovremennik magazine, which seemed to him too politicized, and devoted himself to the chanting of nature, weather, and female beauty. For which he was favored by the authorities. The venerable lyric poet and corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy in Moscow died on November 21, 1892.