This was a real Russian writer, translator and art critic, a contemporary of Dostoevsky and Turgenev. Grigorovich Dmitry Vasilievich (whose years of life date from 03/19/1822 to 12/22/1899) was born in the village of Cheremshan, in the Simbirsk province. He became widely known for his novel “The Village”, most of which he devoted to describing the daily life of ordinary people, in all their hardships, poverty and ugliness. He did this very vitally and skillfully without the usual majesty and glorification. So the Slavophiles were not used to seeing their people, therefore they saw in this story a humiliation of the dignity of the Russian people.
Grigorovich Dmitry Vasilievich: biography
His father was a hussar, already a retired manager of the estate of the mother of the writer Count V.A. Solloguba. Grigorovich's mother - Sidonia de Varmont - was the daughter of a French royalist who died on the guillotine. The writer’s father did not die very early; his mother and grandmother took care of him. They raised him in the French manner. Having semi-French roots, Grigorovich spoke Russian poorly. When he was 8 years old, he was sent to study at the French boarding house "Monighetti" in Moscow, after which he continued to receive his education at the St. Petersburg Engineering School, where he entered in 1836. Having studied there until 1840 and having met F. M. Dostoevsky, he, realizing that exact sciences were not for him, was transferred to the Academy of Arts. Here fate brings him to T. G. Shevchenko, but Dmitry Vasilievich Grigorovich does not linger in this educational institution either.
The beginning of creativity
His very first works, such as Theatrical Carriage, The Dog, published in the well-known edition, were rather weak precisely in terms of art.
Around 1841, he met N. A. Nekrasov, who at that time was engaged in publishing various collections, including the anthology “The First of April,” which published a work by three authors at once: Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, and Grigorovich, called “How it’s dangerous to indulge in ambitious dreams. ” Then the story “The Piece of the Canvas” (1846) was published there, which became an independent work of the writer. In Literaturnaya Gazeta, Grigorovich published his short essays, and in the Northern Bee, feuilletons.
Literary communities
In 1842, Dmitry Vasilievich Grigorovich got a job at the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters, where he finds friends and acquaintances among writers. Since 1845, he has been working closely with N. A. Nekrasov in a publishing house that publishes the physiology of Petersburg Physiology, which will publish Grigorovich's essay, Petersburg organ grinders (1845).
An interesting fact is that the writer, knowing a little about the life of the peasants, being in Beketov’s circle, at the age of 23 begins to write a large novel “The Village” (1846), a little later it will be printed in “Domestic Notes”. Marked by critic Belinsky, writers Saltykov - Shchedrin and Tolstoy, Grigorovich is gaining popularity.
In 1847, he wrote the story “Anton-Goremyk” and published it in “Sovremennik”. Critics and writers accepted this work with unanimous approval. Grigorovich acquires a literary name and creates a series of short stories, describing the life of the capital in them.
Further in 1852 there will be "Country Roads", in 1853 - "Fishermen". His works will not go unnoticed in the then literary circles. Having gained experience, he, on behalf of the Ministry of Sea Transport from 1858 to 1859, travels to Europe and writes a series of essays, which will later be given the name “Ship Retvisan”.
Schism and oblivion
In the 60s in the journal Sovremennik, a split between young noble writers and radical heterodoxes ripened. Grigorovich joined the first group and was forced to leave the editorial office. Chernyshevsky, the leader of the radicals, criticized Grigorovich and Turgenev, who expressed his opinion in the article “Isn't the beginning of a change?”. From that time they became enemies.
Since 1864, Dmitry Vasilievich Grigorovich, not finding a common language with modernity, is heading to work, because then he worked as a secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Arts. For these labors, he was granted a life-long pension and the rank of full-time state adviser.
In the mid-80s, he again took up literary work and created the novels “The Gutta-percha Boy” (1883), “Acrobats of Charity” (1885).
Grigorovich Dmitry Vasilievich: stories, list
In his last years, he has been writing Literary Memoirs (1893), where for future generations he draws portraits of L. Tolstoy, I. Turgenev and other classics, with whom he had to communicate in life.
Grigorovich died on December 22, 1899 in St. Petersburg. He was buried in the Wolf Cemetery.
Below is a list of his works:
1845 - St. Petersburg organ grinders.
1846 - “Piece of canvas.”
1846 - “The Village”.
1847 - “Anton-Goremyka”.
1848 - The Bobyl.
1848 - "Kapellmeister Suslikov".
1849 - "The Adventure of Nakatov."
1849 - The Four Seasons.
1852 - “Smedovskaya Valley”.
1852 - "Country Roads".
1852 - "Mother and Daughter."
1853 - The Fishermen.
1854 - “Passerby”.
1855 - "Svistulkin."
1855 - "School of hospitality."
1856 - The Plowman.
1855-1856 - “Migrants”.
1860 - “Plowman and velvet”.
1864 - Two Generals.
1883 - The Gutta-percha Boy.
1885 - "Acrobats of charity."
1893 - “Literary Memoirs”.
Here is the main list of literary masterpieces that Dmitry Vasilievich Grigorovich left to his future generation. The works of this writer make you think, compassion and overestimate life, you will not see romanticism here, solid realism.