Aleksandr Ivanovich Odoevsky
Prince Aleksandr Ivanovich Odoevsky was a notable Russian poet and Decembrist, born on November 26, 1802, in St. Petersburg. He was part of an aristocratic family and received his early education at home before beginning his service in the Imperial Cabinet in 1815. Odoevsky joined the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment in 1821, where he developed his literary interests, particularly influenced by his cousin Aleksandr Griboedov. His involvement with the revolutionary group Severnoe obshchestvo led to his participation in the Decembrist revolt of 1825, after which he was imprisoned at the Peter-Paul Fortress. His imprisonment spurred a prolific period of poetic creation despite the harsh conditions, resulting in many of his surviving works. Following his sentencing to penal exile in Siberia, Odoevsky continued to write, with his verses often shared among fellow political exiles. In the later years of his life, he served in the Caucasian Corps and formed friendships with other notable literary figures, including Mikhail Lermontov. Odoevsky's complete collection of poetry was published posthumously in 1883, highlighting his enduring influence on Russian literature.
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Aleksandr Ivanovich Odoevsky
Writer
- Born: November 26, 1802
- Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Russia
- Died: August 15, 1839
- Place of death: Russia
Biography
Prince Aleksandr Ivanovich Odoevsky was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 26, 1802, to Prince Ivan Sergeevich Odoevsky and Princess Praskov’ia Aleksandrovna Odoevskaia. As was customary among wealthy families of the time, Odoevsky received his early education at home. In 1815, while still studying with tutors, he began to serve under the Chancellor of the Imperial Cabinet. He did not serve in the military until 1821, joining the the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment as a noncommissioned officer. When not engaged in military action at Vilizh, Odoevsky read and wrote poetry.
In 1822, the regiment returned to the capital, where Odoevsky’s social life flourished and he grew close to his cousin Aleksandr Sergeevich Griboedov, who had encouraged Odoevsky’s earliest literary efforts. Odoevsky joined Severnoe obshchestvo (northern society), a revolutionary group that promoted the idea that the sovereignty of the state belonged to the Russian people. Both Griboedov and Vil’gel’m Karlovich Kiukhel’beker lived with Odoevsky for a time.
As a result of his participation in the Decembrist revolt, in 1825, Odoevsky and other Decembrists were imprisoned at the Peter-Paul Fortress. His isolation there produced such desperate and agitated poems as “Utro” (morning). Odoevsky’s sentencing—in June of 1826—to fifteen years of penal exile (later commuted to twelve years) brought some respite. He was transferred to Chitinsky Stockade in Siberia early the following year.
In Chita, Odoevsky lived and worked alongside other political exiles, many of them well-educated. In the evenings the prisoners gave lectures. Nearly all of Odoevsky’s surviving poems date from this period; he composed poems extemporaneously and his friends wrote them down for him. They also set many of his verses to music.
In 1830, a number of Odoevsky’s poems appeared in print, in Literaturnaia gazeta (literary gazette) and in Severnye tsvety (northern flowers). The same year, Odoevsky was transferred to Petrovskii Zavod. He spent a brief time at the Tel’minskoi Fabric Works in 1832 and 1833, but—upon the czar’s mediation—he was conveyed to Elan, near Irkutsk. There Odoevsky lacked friends and seldom wrote.
In 1836, his family succeeded in negotiating his relocation to Ishim in the Tobolsk region. The following year Odoevsky was granted a transfer into the Caucasian Corps. En route from Ishim, he was reunited with his father in Kazan. In the Caucasus, near Tbilisi, Odoevsky served in the Nizhnegorodsky Dragoon Regiment, had occasion to meet with Decembrist comrades, befriended Mikhail Iur’evich Lermontov, and composed his final poems. It is thanks primarily to the efforts of Baron Andrei Evgen’evich Rozen, a Chita inmate, that a collection of Odoevsky’s work, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii kniazia Aleksandra Ivanovicha Odoevskago, dekabrista (the complete collection of the poems of Prince Aleksandr Ivanovich Odoevsky, Decembrist), was published—although not until 1883.