Afanasy Afanasevich Fet, aka Shenshin, is a famous Russian poet, one of the best lyricists in Russian literature. Many fans of his work know when Fet was born and died. If you are not one of them, we suggest filling the knowledge gap. This man has gone through a rather difficult life path. And he happened to experience the first blow of fate in his early years.
Birth story, or Who is the father?
Origin Athanasius Fet - the darkest place in his biography. It is still not known exactly who his real father is. A short biography of Fet, telling about his birth, describes a complex and ambiguous story.
In September 1820, a respectable forty-four-year-old landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin returned to his estate after a year of treatment at a German spa resort. In Germany, he stayed at the house of Karl Becker, where he met his married daughter Charlotte Fet. After a while, the woman became pregnant ...
Controversial Opinion
Of course, it is important to know when Fet was born and died, but to understand this almost detective story of his birth was no less interesting. Opinions differ on further developments. Some biographers believe that Charlotte hastily filed for divorce and soon with Athanasius Neophytovich married in Germany a legal marriage.
Other experts who investigated the facts of the birth of the future poet are inclined to believe that Afanasy Neofitovich, without waiting for a divorce, simply took Charlotte to his estate. There later, little Athanasius, the future great poet, will be born. This is a short biography of Fet, which tells of his confused origin.
The first blow of fate
When Afanasy Afanasievich was fourteen years old, an official notification came from Germany regarding the rights of his birth. According to him, from that moment he was the legitimate son of his German father. In this connection, he automatically lost all the titles of nobility, which he rightfully used as a Shenshin.
As a result of these circumstances, the fourteen-year-old Athanasius Fet became considered the illegitimate child of Shenshin Afanasy Neofitovich. And this laid a huge stain on the whole future life of the poet. Now his main goal was to restore his noble dignity and restore lost rights.
University studies and new acquaintance
At the same time, Fet Afanasy Afanasievich was sent to the Livonian city of Verro, where he was admitted to a German boarding school. Without a name, family and citizenship, the boy felt his particular infringement. In those same years, the young man began to discover a poetic talent in himself, with the help of which he was detached from reality and immersed in the world of creativity.
In 1837, Fet Afanasy Afanasievich, by decision of Shenshin, was transferred to a boarding school in Moscow, owned by Mikhail Pogodin. And next year, the future poet enters the university to study law and philology. There he meets Apollo Grigoriev, his classmate, and they become very close friends.
Soon Athanasius even moved to Apollo’s house on Malaya Polyanka, where he settled in a small room on the top floor. In the future, many contemporaries will note that Apollo Grigoriev with his ideas had an important influence on the work of young Athanasius Fet.
A. Fet: photo in military uniform, or Why service is needed
Athanasius studied very poorly, science did not interest him. Because of this, he had to stay at the university even two years longer. The youth is constantly tormented by longing, she strangles him, and he finds salvation only in poetry. Finally, Afanasy Afanasievich graduated from Moscow University, and the friendships that appeared during these years of Fet's life played a significant role in the fate of Russian lyric poetry. At that time, he met with German philosophers, matured and became a true poet.
In 1840, the first collection of poems by Fet, called the Lyric Pantheon, was published. However, after graduation, Afanasy Afanasevich begins his career in the military. Why did this man suddenly begin to serve in the army? The fact is that certain ranks gave a person the right to personal nobility. Significant years of Fet's life were spent on regaining the name of Shenshin.
This is connected with his endless trips to different regions of Russia and the remoteness of Afanasy Afanasevich from those places where real literary life was raging, magazines were published, poems were discussed. And it is not so important when Fet was born and died. Of great importance is what fate awaited the poet because of the incomprehensible history of his birth.
Poet or business executive. Standing Man
Even after years, Afanasy Afanasyevich was engaged in creativity as if episodically. In 1863, the final collection of his poems was published, which draws a line under the whole period of Fet's life. Then comes the decade during which he practically not only does not publish his works, but does not even write them. This is due to certain external reasons.
The 1960s are a time of reform, and Athanasius Fet publishes articles on agriculture devoted to many pressing issues. And many begin to perceive the poet primarily as a business executive. It is enough to recall the outward appearance of this man - thick-witted, strong, with a large black beard, to understand that he writes about the farm for a reason. He really was very skilled and very firmly on his feet.
Two directions in Russian literature
The 1960s are years when literature, and poetry in particular, devotes itself to public service. So, for example, it was in the lyrics of Nikolai Nekrasov - the greatest poet of that time. The axis of confrontation between Nekrasov and Fet lies in the fact that the former represented civic poetry, while Athanasius Afanasievich personified the poetry of pure art.
On the one hand, specific goals, relevance, topicality, and on the other, something very strange. Some streams, nightingales, dreams ... Who needs this? So many readers of that era reasoned. During these years, Afanasy Afanasievich was subjected to endless attacks by journalists. They write numerous parodies of the poet. They do not like the excessive musicality and rhythm of his works. Indeed, Fet's poetry is distinguished by its integrity and unity. From the very beginning, he proved himself to be a lyricist who praises the beauty and harmony of the world.
Special motives of the lyrics of Afanasy Afanasievich
The main characteristics of the lyrics of Athanasius Fet are associativity, ambiguity and musicality. His verses do not represent wildlife, but the space of human life. For example, not a sea, but a pond, not a whistle of the wind, but the sounds of music, not a forest, but a garden. "Whispers, timid breathing, nightingale trills ...". Not everyone remembers when Fet was born and died, but many readers know by heart these textbook lines belonging to the pen of Athanasius Afanasievich.
The world of feta poetry consists of images of pure beauty. For these poems do not need any external stimuli, any special reasons or social events. And it was precisely this chamber that allowed Fet to remain a poet for decades. And as if not to notice their aging. Afanasy Afanasievich was born in 1820, and Fet's life ended in 1892. And it should be noted that it was in the last decade, in 1880, that the absolute heyday of his work came.
The Great Importance of Fet's Lyrics
It was at that time when Athanasius Fet was the master of his remarkable estate in the Kursk province that he wrote his most delightful poems. Then the poet gained stability and happiness in family life. Fet, whose photo today is familiar even to the smallest reader, began to publish one after another the collections under the same name "Evening Lights". Four were published, the fifth was prepared for publication.
In these last verses, anyone can see the same young soul of the poet, who is not so much immersed in everyday life, but inclined to see its philosophical depth behind each detail. And this is no coincidence. Because the early, still university hobbies of philosophy in his mature years resulted in systematic studies.
Afanasy Afanasevich occupies a special place in Russian poetry of the nineteenth century. Without Fet, there would be no Russian symbolists, the works of Alexander Blok, Konstantin Balmont and many other wonderful poets. It was on the basis of the lyrical discoveries of Athanasius Fet that whole trends arose in poetry of the twentieth century. First of all, symbolism. The significance of Fet's poetry is thus very great.