Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov
Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov was a Russian poet born on April 11, 1779, in Moscow, to a wealthy government official. Initially serving in the military, he transitioned to civil service and held prominent positions within the Moscow prosecutor's office and the army chief of staff. In 1809, he married Sofiia Andreevna Davydova, and the couple had two children. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Kozlov worked in the State Property Administration in St. Petersburg. However, in 1816, he contracted a progressive illness that left him blind and paralyzed, significantly impacting his physical capabilities. Despite these challenges, Kozlov's literary career flourished; he began writing poetry, with his first published work appearing in 1821. His poetry often engages with themes related to other poets and incorporates elements of music and politics, marked by a concise and intense style. Notably, Kozlov was also a translator, adapting works by prominent poets like Lord Byron and Robert Burns into Russian.
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Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov
Poet
- Born: April 11, 1779
- Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
- Died: January 30, 1840
Biography
Although blind and paralyzed for the final third of his life, Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov managed to establish himself as a writer, of much debated quality, during this period. Kozlov was born in Moscow, Russia, on April 11, 1779, the son of a wealthy government official. He was educated at home and, at the age of five, enrolled in the Izmailovsky Guards regiment as a soldier. Kozlov advanced to the rank of ensign but in 1798 transferred from military to civil service. He worked in the chief prosecutor’s office in Moscow until 1807, when he was promoted to a senior position in the office of the army chief of staff. In 1809, Kozlov wed Sofiia Andreevna Davydova, with whom he had two children, Pavel and Aleksandra.
After the Napoleonic Wars, Kozlov worked in the State Property Administration in St. Petersburg. In 1816, he became ill with a form of progressive paralysis that gradually deteriorated his eyesight, hearing, and speech, and left him unable to use his legs or hands. Kozlov’s daughter served as both reader and scribe after the onset of his illness. Despite, or perhaps because of, his physical difficulties, Kozlov turned to writing. His first published poem, “K Svetlane,” appeared in the journal Syn otechestva in 1821. Many of his poems are addressed to, or are about, other poets, including Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Adam Mickiewicz, and William Wordsworth. His poems also touch on music and politics. Kozlov’s greatest strength as a poet appears to be his inclination towards pithy intensity, the encapsulation of feeling in a brief span of lines. Both Kozlov’s remarkable memory and the models of his literary forebears inspired new works. His narrative poems Chernets (1825), Kniaginia Dolgorukaia (1827), and Bezumnaiia (1830), all well received, imitate Byron. Kozlov’s memory also aided his acquisition of new languages and he translated the works of Burns, Byron, and Thomas More, and other writers into Russian. Kozlov’s translation of Byron’s The Bride of Abydos was published as Nevesta abidosskaia in 1826, while Burns’s The Cotter’s Saturday Night appeared as Sel’skii subbotnii vecher v Shotlandii in 1829. It is unclear whether the curious presence of Russian details in Kozlov’s translations resulted from his disability or from a desire to render the original works anew for their Russian audience.