Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (Shenshin) was born on November 23 (December 5), 1820 in the village of Novoselki near Mtsensk.

The history of his birth is so confusing that it is unlikely that anyone will be able to figure it out, and the problem itself is extremely important for Russian literature, since it was it that predetermined the life, fate and work of one of the greatest poets Russia.

The facts are this. The boy's mother, Charlotte Elisabeth Becker, came from the old East German noble family. On May 18, 1818, she married Johann Peter Karl Wilhelm Vöth, a Greater German district assessor from Darmstadt. It was said that Fet was an illegitimate child of one of the sons of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt. On July 17, 1819, a daughter was born to the Fetov couple. At the beginning of 1820, a well-born but impoverished landowner from the Oryol province came to Darmstadt for treatment. Mtsensk district Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. Member of the war of 1812, ugly, aged (well over forty years old). He passionately fell in love with Charlotte Feth, stole her and took her to Russia. The woman was twenty-two at the time. Why she agreed to escape is unknown. The runaway was pregnant. All biographers agree that Shenshin was not the father of the great poet. However, later Johann Vöth did not recognize the boy as his son in his will.

Afanasy Afanasyevich himself publicly claimed that his father was Shenshin. But Fet's letter to his bride has been preserved, in which he revealed the secret of his birth. On the envelope of the letter, which Fet asked to be burned immediately after reading, Fet’s hand is inscribed: “Read to yourself” - and the hand of his wife M. Botkina is attributed: “Put with me in a coffin.” “My mother,” Fet wrote, “was married to my father, a Darmstadt scientist and lawyer Fet, gave birth to a daughter, Carolina, and was pregnant with me. At that time, my stepfather Shenshin came and lived in Darmstadt, who took my mother away from Fet, and when Shenshin arrived in the village, a few months later my mother gave birth to me ... Here is the story of my birth.

The baby was baptized according to the Orthodox rite and entered into the church register as the son of Athanasius Shenshin. However, at that time, Johann Vöth was still considered the husband of Charlotte Becker, the marriage was annulled in Darmstadt only on December 8, 1821. And only on September 4, 1822, when Charlotte converted to Orthodoxy and received the Orthodox name Elizaveta Petrovna, the wedding of the Shenshins took place.

It is known that in 1830 Shenshin did not include the name of Athanasius in the application for inclusion in the noble genealogical book. Even during the life of Fet, the gossip that is very popular today began to spread that A.N. Shenshin, passing through Koenigsberg, allegedly “bought” his pregnant wife from a local Jewish tavern keeper and brought the concubine to his estate ...

Until the age of fourteen, Afanasy Shenshin Jr. grew up like an ordinary Russian barchuk. At the end of 1834, his life changed dramatically. Father unexpectedly took Athanasius to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg. Further, after consulting with influential friends, he sent the boy to the remote Livonian town of Verro (now Vyra in Estonia), where Athanasius was assigned to study at a “private pedagogical institution” of a certain Krummer. Everything suggests that Shenshin had strong enemies who decided to strike at his most vulnerable spot - the diocesan authorities were informed that Shenshin's son was illegitimate child. Officials immediately needed to "restore justice." If Shenshin was a wealthy powerful nobleman, there would be no problems. At the beginning of 1835, the Oryol spiritual consistory decided to consider the father of the boy not Shenshin, but the already deceased Johann Fet.

For the sake of the further well-being of the family, Afanasy Neofitovich was forced to sacrifice his eldest son. Fet recalled: “Once, without further explanation, my father wrote to me that from now on I should bear the surname Fet ... In the boarding house, this news caused a stir: - What is it? do you have a double last name? why is there no other? where are you from? what kind of person are you? etc., etc. All such exclamations and inexplicable questions further confirmed in me the determination to remain silent on this matter, without demanding explanations from anyone at home. The surname Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich wore for almost forty years.

Simultaneously with the surname, the young man lost the rights to the pillar nobility, to his father's estate, to Russian affiliation - from now on he was considered a Hesse-Darmstadt subject, a foreigner, a stranger and a commoner ... Athanasius was obliged to sign: "Foreigner Fet had a hand in this." When later the poet was asked what was the most painful thing for him in life, he answered that all his tears and pain were concentrated in one word - “Fet”.

In 1837, now Afanasy Fet arrived in Moscow and entered the philosophical faculty of the university. He was listed as a student from foreigners, he studied not for the prescribed four years, but for six whole years. As Fet himself later admitted, his poetic gift suddenly awakened, and instead of going to lectures, he wrote poetry all day long. In 1840, the first collection of his poems "Lyrical Pantheon" was published, signed "A. F."

In the period 1842-1843, a total of 85 Fet's poems were published in Fatherland Notes and Moskvityanin. The talent of the beginning poet was noted by N. V. Gogol.

But in 1844, the life of Afanasy Afanasyevich changed dramatically once again. At the beginning of the year, a seriously ill mother died, and in the fall, Uncle Pyotr Neofitovich Shenshin passed away. When Athanasius was deprived of the right to inherit, the lonely uncle promised to leave his estate to his nephew. But Pyotr Neofitovich died in Pyatigorsk, where he was treated on the waters, and the estate left without his supervision was plundered, and the money mysteriously disappeared from the bank. Afanasy Afanasyevich was left without a livelihood. He had only one way out - to go to serve in the army.

Fet accepted Russian citizenship (doesn't this remind you of the current bullying of the authorities over our compatriots?) And a month later he was promoted to cornet. He was seconded to the headquarters of the corps of the Order Cuirassier Regiment in the Kherson province.

A year later, the poet received the rank of officer, the first in a long line of seniority to acquire nobility over time.

In the summer of 1848, Fet had a whole series of acquaintances that played almost a decisive role in his future fate. The regiment in which Fet served was located in the village of Krasnoselye. Here the young man was invited to a ball to the local rich landowner, the district marshal of the nobility Alexei Fedorovich Brzhesky. At the ball, the poet met the owner's wife, Alexandra Lvovna Brzheska, with whom he remained in friendly correspondence for more than fifty years - until the end of his life.

Not far from the Brzhesky estate was Fedorovka, the estate of Alexei Fedorovich's sister, Elizaveta Fedorovna Petkovich, where the hostess's nieces, Lazich's sister, often visited. As a good friend of the Brzeski Fet, he often visited the Petkoviches.

The young man fell in love with Elena Lazich. it conventional version, but it must be remembered that Fet himself never named his beloved, and Lazich was identified by literary critics in the 1920s. In the family of relatives, the girl enjoyed well-deserved sympathy. Elena's father, a retired major general, a widower, was a decent man, but poor.

The novel lasted over a year. Unexpectedly, Fet decided that he would never marry Elena, which doomed himself to lifelong spiritual loneliness. He explained the reasons for this decision as follows: “I clearly understand that to marry an officer who receives 300 rubles without a house, to a girl without a fortune, means thoughtlessly and in bad faith to take on an oath promise that you are not able to fulfill.”

Soon, Fet had to leave for a while due to official needs. When he returned, terrible news awaited him: Elena Lazich was no longer alive. Fet himself wrote about the tragedy as follows: “... the last time she lay down in a white muslin dress and, lighting a cigarette, threw a match on the floor, focused on the book, which she considered extinct. But the match, which continued to burn, ignited the dress that had fallen to the floor, and the girl only then noticed that she was burning when all Right side was on fire. Confused at the complete desertion, with the exception of the helpless girl of the sister ... unfortunate, instead of falling to the floor, trying at least own body put out the fire, rushed through the rooms to the balcony door of the living room, and the burning pieces of the dress, torn off, fell on the parquet, leaving traces of fatal burning on it. Thinking to find relief in the fresh air, the girl ran out to the balcony. But at the very first appearance in the air, the flame rose above her head, and she ... rushed up the steps into the garden ... People came running to the cries of her sister and carried her to the bedroom. Any medical assistance was unnecessary.

Fet later admitted, being sure that he was to blame for the death of Elena: “I was waiting for a woman who would understand me, and I waited for her. As she burned, she screamed: "Au nom du ciel sauvez les lettres." (“For the love of all that is holy, save the letters.” - French) and died with the words: “He is not to blame, but I.” After that, it's not worth talking about."

From this terrible year for Fet, the nickname "singer of sorrow" was strengthened.

In 1853, Fet was transferred to the Guards Lancers Regiment, which was stationed in Krasnoe Selo, near the capital, for summer training. This gave the poet the opportunity to get acquainted with I. S. Turgenev, and through him with the publishers and authors of Sovremennik: Nekrasov, Panaev, Goncharov, Druzhinin, Grigorovich, Annenkov, Botkin, and later with Leo Tolstoy. Fet soon became his man in Sovremennik, but they treated him with condescension, as a man of a small mind. They said about the poet with a smile: “The eyes are round, the mouth is round, senseless amazement on the face.” With the help of Sovremennik, Fet published a collection of poems in 1856, which was a huge success.

In 1857, a decree was issued by the new Emperor Alexander II, according to which the title of hereditary nobleman was given only by the rank of colonel. The shocked Fet realized that military service would give him the nobility only at the end of his life, he retired and moved to live in Moscow.

In the spring of 1857, the poet proposed to Maria Petrovna Botkina, the daughter of a famous tea merchant and sister of Vasily Petrovich Botkin, a famous writer, critic, close friend of Belinsky, friend and connoisseur of Fet. Maria Petrovna did not expect the offer at all, she was delighted and immediately agreed. The groom was thirty-seventh year, the bride - the thirtieth. Botkina was attractive for her good nature and simplicity, but she had an illegitimate child. A “union of lonely souls” arose, in which there was a lot of true love. Maria Petrovna has since become inseparable from Fet for the rest of her life. As a dowry, the poet received 35 thousand rubles in silver - a huge amount for those times ...

In 1860, Fet bought the Stepanovka steppe farm in the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, which, with his businesslike management, quickly turned into a rich estate with a regular park and fertile agricultural land.

Fet soon turned into a passionate hoarder, occupied primarily with thoughts of increasing his already considerable fortune. His fame grew as an outstanding land surveyor, an excellent business executive, who allowed both the peasant and himself to get rich. It is curious that on the eve of the reform of 1861, Fet became famous throughout the country as a fierce defender of the old order.

Over time, the poet bought Vorobyovka (for more than 100 thousand rubles!) - a remarkably beautiful manor estate, which he called "our microscopic Switzerland." Then the estate of Olkhovatka in the Shchigrovsky district of the Kursk province, then the estate of Gravoronka in the Zemlyansky district Voronezh province, with this estate, the poet got a second stud farm, since the stud farm was already in Vorobyovka.

Among the landlord neighbors, Fet became an increasingly respected person. An expression of this was his choice in 1867 to the post of justice of the peace, established by the judicial reform of 1864 and then considered a very honorable one, in which he remained for 17 years.

Feta bought in Moscow spacious house in the city center on Plyushchikha (now house number 36).

The fame of the poet Fet grew. In the 1860s, there was a fierce struggle between the revolutionary democrats and the literary liberals closest to Fet. The poet took a special position - anti-revolutionary and anti-liberal. Contrary to Nekrasov, he declared that a poet does not have to be a citizen! Since the Chernyshevsky-Dobrolyubov line was finally established in Sovremennik, Fet refused to cooperate with the magazine.

In 1863, the poet released a new collection of his poems in two parts, which the new democratic generation did not accept - a small edition of the book, on a tip from Pisarev, did not sell out until the end of Fet's life - for almost thirty years! This attitude of the reading public plunged the poet into a long creative crisis. He was silent for many years, stopped publishing his poems.

In 1873, on December 26, the Decree of the Senate was issued on the accession of A. A. Fet to the Shenshin family. It was a victory. But, strange to say, the poet, who so passionately longed to change his name, continued to print poems under his former surname. He explained it in the following lines:

I am between the crying Shenshin,

And Fet I am only among those who sing.

A friend and admirer of Afanasy Afanasyevich was Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, a well-known poet in Russian literature, published under the pseudonym K. R. His efforts in 1889, on the occasion of the fiftieth literary anniversary of the poet, the new emperor Alexander III granted Fet the court title of senior rank - chamberlain.

By the end of his life, the poet became a stern conservative. It was said that when he was in Moscow and passing by the university in a cab, he without fail lowered the window of the carriage and spat with hatred in the direction of the institution. Accustomed to this, the coachman stopped each time without further instructions.

Only in 1881 did Fet suddenly return to literature. First as a translator. He published a translation of Schopenhauer's main work, The World as Will and Representation. This was followed by: in 1882 - the translation of the first part of "Faust" by I. V. Goethe; in 1883 - a verse translation of all the works of Horace; in 1888 - the second part of Faust. During the last seven years of the poet’s life, translations were published: “Satires” by Juvenal, “Poems” by Catullus, “Elegies” by Tibullus, “Transformations” and “Sorrows” by Ovid, “Elegies” by Propertius, “Aeneid” by Virgil, “Satires” by Persia, “ Pot" by Plautus, "Epigrams" by Martial, "Hermann and Dorothea" by Goethe, "Semela" by Schiller, "Dupont and Durand" by Musset, many poems by Heine.

After a long break, Fet again began to create original poems. They were published in issues called "Evening Lights" (issue I - 1883; issue II - 1885; issue III - 1888; issue IV - 1891).

In 1890, two volumes of memoirs, My Memoirs, were published; the third volume early years my life" was published posthumously in 1893.

In the year of his death, Fet prepared the final edition of his works. This allowed N. N. Strakhov and K. R. to release in 1894 a two-volume collection of Fet's works.

Like his birth, Fet's death is shrouded in mystery. The testimonies of the poet's relatives are as follows. Half an hour before his death, Fet insistently wished to drink champagne. The wife was afraid to give the patient alcohol, and the poet sent her to the doctor for permission. Left alone with his secretary, Afanasy Afanasyevich dictated to her a note of strange content: "I do not understand the conscious increase in inevitable suffering, I voluntarily go towards the inevitable." Under this, he himself signed: "November 21st Fet (Shenshin)". Then he grabbed a steel stiletto that lay on his paper-cutting table. The secretary rushed to snatch the weapon and hurt her hand. Then Fet ran through several rooms to the dining room to the sideboard, apparently for another knife, and suddenly, panting often, fell on a chair. It was the end. No formal suicide took place. But by the nature of everything that happened, it was, of course, a premeditated and decided suicide.

It was officially announced that the poet had died of chronic "chest disease" complicated by bronchitis.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892)

For almost a hundred years - half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th - there were serious battles around the work of Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet. If some saw him as a great lyricist and wondered, like Leo Tolstoy: “And where does this ... officer get such incomprehensible lyrical audacity, the property of great poets ...”, then others, like, for example, Saltykov-Shchedrin, saw Fet’s poetic world “close , monotonous and limited", Mikhail Evgrafovich even wrote that "the weak presence of consciousness is the hallmark of this half-childish worldview."

The democrats of the 19th century and the Bolsheviks of the 20th considered Fet among minor poets, because, they say, he is not publicly significant poet, he does not have songs of protest and a revolutionary mood. Responding to such attacks, Dostoevsky once wrote famous article"Mr. Bov and the question of art." He answered N. A. Dobrolyubov, who at that time led the criticism and ideology of the Sovremennik magazine and called art like Fet’s poetry “useless”.

Dostoevsky gives the following example: “Let's suppose that we are transported to the eighteenth century, exactly on the day of the Lisbon earthquake. Half the people in Lisbon die; houses fall apart and collapse; property is destroyed; each of the survivors has lost something - either an estate or a family. Citizens jostle through the streets in desperation, stricken, maddened with terror. Some famous Portuguese poet lives in Lisbon at this time. The next day, in the morning, an issue of the Lisbon "Mercury" was published (at that time everything was published in the "Mercury"). The issue of a magazine that appeared at such a moment even arouses some curiosity in the unfortunate Lisboners, despite the fact that at that moment they are not up to magazines; they hope that the issue was published on purpose to give some information, to convey some news about the dead, the missing, and so on. and so on. And suddenly - in the most prominent place on the sheet, something like the following catches the eye of everyone:

Whisper, timid breath,

trill nightingale,

Silver and flutter

sleepy stream,

Night light, night shadows,

Shadows without end.

A series of magical changes

Sweet face.

In smoky clouds purple roses,

reflection of amber,

And kisses, and tears,

And dawn, dawn!..

And not only that: right there, in the form of an afterword to the poem, the well-known poetic rule is attached in prose, that he is not a poet who is not able to jump headfirst out of the fourth floor (for what reasons? - I still don’t understand this ; but let it be absolutely necessary to be a poet; I don’t want to argue). I don’t know for sure how the Lisbon people would have accepted their Mercury, but it seems to me that they would have immediately executed publicly, on the square of their famous poet, and not at all because he wrote a poem without a verb, but because instead of the trills of a nightingale, such trills were heard under the ground the day before, and the swaying of the stream appeared at the moment of such a swaying of the whole city that poor Lisbon residents not only had no desire to watch -

Purple roses in smoky clouds

reflection of amber,

But even the act of a poet who sang such amusing things at such a moment of their lives seemed too insulting and unfraternal. Of course, having executed their poet (also very unfraternally), they ... in thirty, fifty years later they would have erected a monument to him in the square for his amazing poems in general, and at the same time for the "purple rose" in particular.

Fet has always been, as they say now, an iconic figure. Therefore, to express his thoughts, Dostoevsky took lyric poem Fet, proving that art is valuable in itself, without applied value, that the "use" is already in the fact that it is real art.

Such disputes have reached our time, but Fet's poetry now seems to stand unshakably at the very top of the poetic Olympus. The last wave of underestimation of the merits of this poet came in the 1970s, when several major contemporary poets (Vladimir Sokolov, Nikolai Rubtsov, Anatoly Peredreev and others) clearly stated that they were based on the traditions of Fet's poetic culture. Then, in response to this, Yevtushenko called them all “fetyats”. But that didn't mean anything anymore. Everyone already understood what Fet was and what Yevtushenko was.

And Fet is, let us quote Dostoevsky, “poems full of such passionate vitality, such melancholy, such significance that we know nothing stronger, more vital in all our Russian poetry.” I will cite a poem that entered my soul many years ago, and I repeat it in the most difficult moments of my life. Now to the question of "pure art", of "utility and the like."

Learn from them - from the oak, from the birch.

Around winter. Tough time!

In vain, tears froze on them,

And cracked, shrinking, the bark.

All the angrier blizzard and every minute

Angrily tears the last sheets,

And a fierce cold grabs at the heart;

They stand silent; shut up and you!

But believe in spring. Genius will rush her

Breathing warmth and life again.

For clear days, for new revelations

A grieving soul will be ill.

How life force in this poem, how fresh, musical it is.

It must be said that the main distinguishing feature Fet's poetic culture is precisely musicality. The poet himself wrote about his work: "Tchaikovsky is a thousand times right, since I was always drawn from a certain area of ​​words to an indefinite area of ​​music, into which I went, as far as my strength was." Therefore, composers wrote romances for many of his poems, and “Don’t wake her up at dawn ...” became just a folk song.

Fet said: “What you can’t express with words - / Sound on the soul…” Let's give a short poem in which the poetic state is inspired. Eight lines, but all of Russia is visible behind them:

wonderful picture,

How are you related to me?

white plain,

Full moon.

the light of the heavens above,

And shining snow

And distant sleigh

Lonely run.

Fet was reproached for avoiding civil and patriotic themes "into the world of intimate emotional experiences". They blamed me unreasonably. Here is the poem, of course, refers to the patriotic lyrics in its very high expression. Fet was generally a passionate patriot. And his restrained, but powerful patriotic element is palpable in the poems “I go far on my way ...”, “Lonely Oak”, “ Warm wind softly breathes…”, “Under the skies of France”, “Answer to Turgenev”, “Ducks”…

Afanasy Afanasyevich was born in the estate of Novoselki, Mtsensk district, Oryol province. Was illegitimate son landowner Shenshin, and received his last name from his mother Charlotte Fet, at the same time losing the right to nobility. For many years later, he will achieve a hereditary noble rank, through service in the army, he will achieve and receive the noble surname Shenshin. But in literature it will forever remain as Fet.

He studied at the verbal faculty of Moscow University, where he became close to the future poet and critic Apollon Grigoriev. While still a student, Athanasius published his first book, Lyrical Pantheon. He served in the army from 1845 to 1858, served in the cavalry troops, in the regiment of heavy artillery, in the guards lancer regiment. After the service, he acquired a lot of land and became a landowner.

In 1857 Fet got married. But this was preceded tragic love, which left a mark in the heart of the poet for the rest of his life. During the army service in Ukraine, the poet met Maria Lazich. She was a highly educated girl, a talented musician, whose playing aroused admiration from Franz Liszt, who was then on tour in Ukraine. She was a passionate admirer of Fet's poetry and fell in love with him selflessly. But Fet did not dare to marry this girl, because then he did not have the opportunity to support his family. And it so happened that Maria Lazich died tragically at that moment - her dress caught fire from a fallen candle ... She was dying in terrible agony. They talked about suicide because of Fet's "prudence". Like it or not, it is not known for sure, but Fet then returned to the image of this girl in poetry all his life. Read, for example, “For a long time I dreamed of your cries of sobs ...”

Fet married seven years after this tragedy, the sister of his friend, the prominent critic and writer Vasily Botkin.

Having married, Fet completely went into the economy and even, I must say, was an exemplary landowner. His profit on the farm grew all the time. He lived almost without a break in Stepanovka in Mtsensk. Less than 100 kilometers away Yasnaya Polyana. Fet was the closest friend of Leo Tolstoy, they traveled to each other, were friends with families, corresponded.

He wrote poetry until old age. In 1880 he published a series of small collections of poems - almost exclusively new ones - under the title "Evening Lights". These books were published in a circulation of only a few hundred copies and yet were not sold out. The idol of poetry lovers was then Nadson, his books were in great demand. But decades passed, and Evening Lights began to be reprinted already in our time in millions of copies, but where is Nadson, who is he seriously interested in? These are the zigzags in poetic destinies.

In old age, Fet often said to his wife: "You will never see me die." On November 21 (December 3), 1892, he found an excuse to send his wife away from home, called the secretary and dictated: “I don’t understand the deliberate increase in inevitable suffering. Volunteering towards the inevitable." Having signed this note, Fet grabbed a steel stiletto, which served to cut papers ... The secretary, injuring her hand, pulled out the stiletto. Then Fet ran to the dining room, grabbed the door of the box where the knives were stored, but fell and died ... his death, as it were, was and was not a suicide. There is something in it in common with the death of Maria Lazich: was it or was it not? ..

As a poet, Fet, of course, will pass easily from century to century - the beauty and depth of his poetry are inexhaustible. Sometimes he is also a seer. In 1999 we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin. Fet wrote a sonnet for the opening of a monument to Pushkin in Moscow. Let's read it and be surprised how much it contains about our time.

To the monument to Pushkin (Sonnet)

Your prophetic word has been fulfilled

Our old shame looked at your bronze face,

And it's easier to breathe, and we dare again

To proclaim worldwide: you are a genius, you are great!

But, the spectator of angels, the voice of the pure, the holy,

Freedom and love life-giving spring,

Hearing our speech, our Babylonian cry,

What would you find in them cherished, dear?

In this marketplace, where there is din and crampedness,

Where Russian common sense fell silent, like an orphan,

All loud thief, murderer and atheist,

To whom the chamber pot of all thoughts is the limit,

Who spits on the altar where your fire burned

Push daring your unshakable tripod!