Petr Andreevich Viazemsky
Petr Andreevich Viazemsky (1792-1878) was a notable Russian poet and writer known for his contributions to literature in the early 19th century. Born into a prominent family, he was educated in a Western tradition and influenced by his brother-in-law, Nikolai Karamzin, a key figure in Russian literary circles advocating for Western influences. Viazemsky was a founding member of the literary society Obshchestvo arzamasskikh bezvestnykh liudei, which focused on witty and satirical writing. His literary career began in 1808, and he produced notable works, including poems and essays that often critiqued the Russian government, notably in pieces like "Russkii Bog." Despite health challenges that limited his military service, Viazemsky held various civil positions, including a role in Warsaw. He is credited with advancing travel literature through the occasional carriage poem and his late lyrical poetry, such as "Zima," foreshadowed the styles of later poets during the Silver Age. Through his writings, Viazemsky explored themes of Romanticism and the rebellion against classical norms in literature.
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Petr Andreevich Viazemsky
Poet
- Born: July 12, 1792
- Died: November 10, 1878
Biography
A prolific writer, Prince Petr Andreevich Viazemsky was born on July 12, 1792, one of three children born to Andrei Ivanovich Viazemsky and Eugenia (Ivanovna) O’Reilly. Viazemsky received a well-rounded education in the Western tradition at a Jesuit boarding school and from tutors at Moscow University. When his father died in 1807, he came under the influence of his brother-in-law, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, an influential literary figure aligned with the Westernizers, who advocated the incorporation of Western European models into Russian literature.
Karamzin and his followers, among them Viazemsky, founded the literary society Obshchestvo arzamasskikh bezvestnykh liudei (society of the obscure people of Arzamas) in 1815 as a send-up to the Slavophile group Beseda liubitelei russkogo slova (colloquy of lovers of the Russian word). The hallmark of the Arzamas group was light, witty, and often satirical writing in an eighteenth century French manner.
Viazemsky’s literary debut came in 1808, when both his first prose piece—an essay titled “Bezdelki” (bagatelles) and his first poem, a verse epistle titled “Poslanie k Zhukovskomu v derevniu” (epistle to Zhukovsky in the country)—were published in Vestnik Evropy (herald of Europe). In 1811 Viazemsky married Princess Vera Fedorovna Gagarina, with whom he had eight children: Andrei, Mariia, Praskov’ia, Dmitrii, Nikolai, Pavel, Petr, and Nadezhda.
Viazemsky joined the army the following year; however, due to ill health, he was unable to serve in the Great Patriotic War. Subsequently, he retired to a family estate in Ostaf’evo and squandered his fortune by gambling, thus necessitating his entry into civil service. From 1818 to 1821, Viazemsky worked in Warsaw in the Russian delegation led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Novosil’tsev. He returned to Moscow after being discharged as a result of the stridently antigovernment stance evinced by his poems, including “Negodovanie” (indignation, 1820). “Russkii Bog” (Russian god), which was not published until 1854 in London, is perhaps Viazemsky’s most notorious attack on the Russian government.
Viazemsky’s critical writing provides a useful companion to the aesthetic beliefs displayed in his verse. The essay “Razgovor mezhdu izdatelem i klassikom s Vyborgskoi storony ili s Vasil’evskogo ostrova” (a conversation between an editor and a classicist from the Vyborg Embankment or Vasil’evsky Island) first appeared as an introduction to Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin’s “Bakhchisaraiskii fontan” (the fountain of Bakhchisarai, 1824) and praises Romanticism for its revolt against the restraints of classicism. One of Viazemsky’s own poems that attempts to work against Classicism is “Pervyi sneg (V 1817-m godu)” (the first snow [of 1817]). Viazemsky is also credited with establishing a new form of travel literature, the occasional carriage poem. By mid-century, when the great Realist novel had displaced poetry, Viazemsky and many poets struggled to feel relevant. However, Viazemsky’s late lyric verse, including such poems as “Zima” (winter, 1848) and “Riabina” (the rowan-tree, 1854), anticipated the work of the Silver Age poets at the turn of the century.