TREDIAKOVSKY, VASILY KIRILLOVICH(1703–1769), Russian poet, translator. Born February 22 (March 5), 1703 in Astrakhan in the family of a priest. As a child, he was sent to the school of Catholic Capuchin monks, in which instruction was conducted in Latin. From Astrakhan in 1723 he fled to Moscow, where he entered the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. However, the teaching in it did not satisfy Trediakovsky, and in 1727 he fled to Holland, from where he moved on foot to Paris. In Paris, he studied at the Sorbonne in mathematics, philosophy and theology. In 1730 he returned to St. Petersburg.

The first significant work published by Trediakovsky upon his return to Russia was the translation of the novel by P. Talman Riding to Love Island(1730). In addition to the translation, the book presented Trediakovsky's original poems in Russian, French and Latin. The poet was very sensitive to the reaction of the public to his book. In general, she was benevolent, although some bigots from among the clergy called him a corrupter of Russian youth. Trediakovsky was introduced to Empress Anna Ioannovna, he received the title of court poet, translator, and then academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

However, the poet's worldly success was short-lived. In 1735, he was accused of dropping her highest title with his song on the occasion of the coronation of the Empress. In 1740 Trediakovsky experienced a deep shock. Minister Volynsky demanded that the poet write poems for the clownish wedding in the Ice House. Dissatisfied with Trediakovsky's reaction to this order, Volynsky beat him up and ordered him to be whipped. The clergy accused the poet of atheism. After all these events, Trediakovsky's dream was peace and solitude, in which he could work in peace.

In 1735 Trediakovsky published a treatise A new and concise way to compose Russian poetry with the definition of hitherto proper knowledge. In this work, he outlined the system of literary genres of classicism and gave the first samples of the sonnet, rondo, madrigal, and ode in Russian poetry. In addition, Trediakovsky laid the foundation for the reform of Russian versification. He pointed out that the way poetry is composed depends on the natural properties of the language. Since stress is not assigned to a specific syllable in Russian verse, the syllabic, which is suitable for a language with constant stress, is not suitable for Russian versification. Trediakovsky cited folk poetry as an example. However, Trediakovsky imposed a number of restrictions on the syllabo-tonic system, which were opposed by M.V. Lomonosov in his Letter on the rules of Russian poetry (1739).

Trediakovsky owns several more literary and theoretical treatises: Discussion about clothing in general, Prediction about the iroic pim, Talking about comedy in general and others, in which the techniques of classicism were developed. These works were based on the principles of the book by N. Boileau poetic art, which Trediakovsky translated in 1752. Boileau's imitation was also one of Trediakovsky's most famous odes Solemn ode on the surrender of the city of Gdansk(1734). In an effort to give examples of various poetic genres, he wrote a philosophical poem Theoptia(1750–1753) and a verse transcription of the Psalter, translated the political-allegorical Latin novel by the Scottish writer J. Barclay argenida (1751).

In 1766, Trediakovsky published one of his most famous works - a poetic translation from the French novel by F. Fenelon The Adventures of Telemachus, named Tilemachida(16 thousand lines). The prose was translated in hexameter, Trediakovsky introduced his own introduction into the text and significantly reworked the author's style.

The publication of Tilemakhida took place shortly after the accession of Catherine II. Catherine saw hints of her own reign in the poem, and Tilemachida became the subject of ridicule and mockery. According to contemporaries, a punishment was established at court: for light guilt - to drink a glass of cold water and read a page from Tilemakhida, and for a greater offense - to learn six lines from a poem. Contrary to popular beliefs about Tilemahide entrenched in society, A. Pushkin later wrote: “Tredyakovsky was, of course, a respectable and decent person. His philological and grammatical researches are very remarkable. He had a broader concept in Russian versification than Lomonosov and Sumarokov. His love for the Fenelon epic does him honor, and the idea of ​​translating it into verse and the very choice of verse prove an extraordinary sense of elegance. AT Tilemahide there are many good poems and happy turns.

Trediakovsky's industriousness was amazing. His poetic works amount to tens of thousands of lines, translations - tens of volumes. He has devoted more than 20 years to translating ancient history(10 vols., 1749–1762) and Roman history(16 vols., 1761–1767) by C. Rollin, whose lectures he listened to at the Sorbonne. When in 1747 a fire destroyed 9 volumes translated by him, he translated them again. Translated also The history of the Roman emperors J.-B. Crevier (4 vols., 1767–1769). Stories Rollin were published by Trediakovsky with extensive Pre-notifications from a person who worked in translation in which he outlined his translation principles; many of them are not disputed by the modern theory of translation. All these works, from which several generations of Russians studied, were printed by Trediakovsky mainly at his own expense, despite the "extreme hunger and cold with his wife and children" that he experienced.

In 1759 Trediakovsky was dismissed from the Academy of Sciences. In 1768 he was overtaken by a serious illness: his legs were paralyzed. Despite this, in the 1760s, Trediakovsky continued to work on translations and his own compositions.

The significance of Trediakovsky for Russian poetry is very great. V. Belinsky’s superficial judgment that “Tredyakovsky, with his fruitless scholarship, with his mediocre diligence, with his scholastic pedantry, with his scientific attempts to assimilate Russian poetry with the correct tonic meters and ancient hexameters” supposedly did nothing for Russian literature, does not correspond to him. .

The controversy with Lomonosov led to the creation of a new system of Russian versification, called the Lomonosov-Trediakovsky system. Enlightener N. Novikov wrote about Trediakovsky: “This man was of great intelligence, much teaching, extensive knowledge and unparalleled diligence; extremely knowledgeable in Latin, Greek, French, Italian and in its natural language; also in philosophy, theology, eloquence and other sciences. By his useful labors he acquired immortal glory for himself. A. Radishchev believed that "Trediakovsky would be dug out of a grave overgrown with moss of oblivion."

Philosophical views of Trediakovsky are expressed in the treatise A word about wisdom, prudence and virtue. In this work, he demonstrates a thorough acquaintance with the tradition of European philosophy, both ancient (Plato, Aristotle) ​​and new (R. Descartes and H. Wolf). Trediakovsky attributed logic, ontology, arithmetic, algebra, and the history of philosophy to propaedeutic philosophical disciplines. The “main” theoretical philosophical disciplines, from his point of view, include: theology, which seeks rational evidence for the existence of God, pneumatology, which studies the relationship between the soul and body, and, finally, physics, which studies the cause-and-effect relationships of the natural world. The sphere of "practical philosophy" includes moral philosophy, which deals with natural law, the doctrine of the virtues (ethics), and "civil" philosophy, which considers the main historical types of society and forms of government. Trediakovsky considered monarchy to be the best form of political government.

(1703-1769)

Trediakovsky was born on the distant outskirts of the then Russian state, in the provincial Astrakhan, in the family of a priest. He took a course of study at the school of Catholic monks, opened in Astrakhan, and at the age of nineteen he fled to Moscow, overwhelmed by a thirst for knowledge. In Moscow, he studied at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy and soon went abroad. He wanders around Holland, then goes to France, on funds that the Russian envoy in Holland lent him. In Paris, he gets acquainted with French culture - the advanced culture of that time, listens to lectures at the Sorbonne, and is especially interested in the humanities. In 1730 he returned to Russia. All his close relatives and parents died of the plague. In Russia, he associates his activities with the newly created Academy of Sciences. But he failed to achieve an independent position, to assert his dignity. The intrigues of academicians and continuous quarrels with other major cultural figures, including Lomonosov and Sumarokov, led to the fact that Trediakovsky's position at the Academy became almost unbearable. His works and translations were no longer published in the then only magazine, Monthly Works. Trediakovsky printed them furtively, hiding under various pseudonyms. Lomonosov calls Trediakovsky, whose initially progressive views gradually faded, "an atheist and a hypocrite." In 1759 he was dismissed from the Academy and ended his life in poverty and oblivion.

Literary activity of Tredaikovskiy is represented by artistic and scientific works. As a theoretician and experimental writer, opening up new paths in Russian literature, Trediakovsky deserves the most serious attention. “His philological and grammatical research,” wrote A.S. Pushkin, - very remarkable. He had a broader understanding of Russian versification than Lomonosov and Sumarokov ... In general, the study of Trediakovsky is more useful than the study of our other old writers.

Trediakovsky was a reformer of Russian versification, the creator of the syllabo-tonic system of verse on Russian soil. The principles of the new versification were outlined by Trediakovsky in the treatise "A New and Brief Method for the Composition of Russian Poems with the Definition of the Previously Appropriate Titles", published in 1735. In The New Method, Trediakovsky fought "on two fronts": against quantitative prosody (the system of pronunciation of stressed and unstressed, long and short syllables in speech) and against syllabic versification. In his treatise, Trediakovsky declares syllabic verses to be "indirect" verses and advocates the use of syllabic tonics in Russian poetry. His demands boiled down to the requirement to replace syllabic verses with the so-called Russian "exameter" and "pentameter". An exameter is a trochee with thirteen syllables, and a pentameter is an eleven-syllable choreic verse. There were reservations in his reform that weakened its role: for example, the necessity of a caesura (pause) in the middle of the eleven and thirteen-syllable choreic verses recommended by him, and this caesura should be surrounded by stressed syllables, and this violated the syllabic structure of the verse; insisted on the use of female rhyme, considering male rhyme rude and alien to Russian poetry; the main size should be the trochee, and the iambic only in comic poems. In 1752, in the second edition of The New Way, Trediakovsky abandoned these restrictions. Despite the half-heartedness and timidity of the reorganization of Russian versification carried out by Trediakovsky, this reform was of great importance in the history of Russian poetry.

In addition to "A New and Brief Method for the Composition of Russian Poetry", Trediakovsky also wrote other works on the theory and history of verse. For example, “Opinion on the beginning of poetry and poetry in general” and “On the ancient, middle and new Russian poem (i.e. versification - I.A.)”, as well as “Discourse on the ode in general”.

In the first article, he states that "creation, invention and imitation are the soul and life of poetry." That is, he, developing the idea of ​​Feofan Prokopovich and going much further, affirms the leading role of fiction in poetry and emphasizes the importance of an active individual principle in poetic creativity.

The article "On the ancient, middle and new Russian poem" outlines the stages of development of Russian national poetry. At the same time, he reveals an understanding of the historical nature of the literary process. This is the first serious attempt at a historical study of the development of Russian versification. Trediakovsky divides the entire history of Russian poetry into three periods: the first is ancient, beginning in time immemorial and lasting until 1663; the second - middle - from 1663 to 1735 (the date of the appearance of the "New and Brief Method"), i.e. before the beginning of syllabo-tonic Russian versification; the third is a new period, when syllabo-tonic versification completely dominates in Russian poetry. The first Russian poems, according to the author of the treatise, performed a religious, cult function. It is very important to emphasize Trediakovsky's orientation towards the rhythm of folk verse. Such an orientation in the "New and Brief Way" to the establishment of the choreic meter as organically inherent in Russian verse, as opposed to other syllabic-tonic meters. It is about what phenomena caused qualitative changes in the development of Russian poetry, mention is made of the appearance at the end of the 16th century, in 1581, of the first Russian literary verses in the Ostroh Bible. Further, speaking of the correct syllabic verse, widespread in Poland in the 17th century, Trediakovsky points out that it was precisely this verse that, having penetrated into Ukraine and Belarus, served as a model for the creation of Russian correct syllabic verse, i.e. verse, which, as a rule, has an odd number of syllables, from 5 to 13, and, in the case of polysyllabism (11-13 syllables), is also divided by a caesura, “crossing”, as Trediakovsky says, into two unequal parts: seven and six syllables or five and six syllables. Trediakovsky considers the female rhyme at the end of the verse to be the most acceptable for Russian poetry, since the combination of two syllables, of which the first is under stress, in itself constitutes a choreic foot, i.e. foot, which, according to Trediakovsky, is most characteristic of Russian verse.

Speaking of syllabic versification, Trediakovsky shows that it is still so imperfect that verses written according to his rules hardly differ from prose. Trediakovsky also noted that the size of the verse is not directly related to the content of the work. On this issue, on which he argued with Lomonosov, Trediakovsky was right. His mistake was in the preference for the chorea and the neglect of other sizes.

In conclusion, Trediakovsky emphasizes that his reform of versification, in essence, is only a renewal of the old folk system. Thus, he once again draws attention to the deeply patriotic, truly popular character of his reform, to its national foundations.

In the article "Discourse on the ode in general" Trediakovsky appears as a theoretician of classicism. He emphasizes the need for "red disorder" in the solemn ode, i.e. intentional imbalance of emotions expressed in the introductory part of the ode, due to which the reader should have had the impression that the poet was extremely excited by the events described and unable to restrain his feelings. Trediakovsky divides the odes into two groups: odes of "praise" and odes of "gentle", in other words, Anacreontic. Trediakovsky insists on the need for the writer to follow the established rules, emphasizes the obligatory normativity of artistic creation. According to Trediakovsky, every writer not only can, but must imitate certain literary models, taken mainly from ancient literature. Trediakovsky himself willingly imitated the French classicists.

In 1730, immediately after returning from abroad, Trediakovsky published a novel by the French writer Paul Talman in his translation under the title "Riding to the Island of Love." This is a typical love story about the experiences of the characters - Tirsis and Aminta on the fantastic "Island of Love", where Tirsis arrived by ship from Europe, about his "cupid" with the beautiful Aminta, who, however, soon disappointed Tirsis, carried away by another young man. But his grief was short-lived: soon he was surprised to feel himself in love with two beauties at once. From some confusion about this, the hero was brought out by the Eye-lovingness he met, which advised Tirsis not to embarrass himself with conventions: you need to love as much as you want - this is the basis of long happiness. These experiences are clothed in allegorical form. Each feeling of the characters corresponds to the conditional toponymy of the “Island of Love”: “Cave of Cruelty”, “Castle of Direct Luxury”, “Gate of Love”, “Desert of Duty”, “Gate of Refusal”, “Lake of Abomination”, etc. Along with the real ones, conditional characters such as “Pity”, “Sincerity”, “Eye-lovingness” are presented (this is how Trediakovsky translated the word “coquetry”, still unknown in Russian). It was this frank allegoricalness of the names, the frank convention of the area in which the action takes place, that gave capacity, typicality to the description of the characters' experiences themselves.

The poeticization of love feeling, its real cult, the glorification of the freedom of feelings, the emancipation of a person from the conventions of the old way of life - such is the ideological content of the work. Nevertheless, the end of the novel contradicts this idea, and the contradiction itself is significant: Tirsis decides not to pursue the pleasures of love anymore and devote his life to the glory of the Fatherland. Such an end was quite consistent with the mood of the time of Peter the Great. The image of the inner experiences of the characters is not yet given to either the author of the French original or its translator. That is why the allegorical names of caves, cities and bays and the personification of the very feelings that overwhelm the heroes were needed. Mystery, Coldness, Reverence, Shame operate in the novel.

Trediakovsky's book is interesting because on its last pages he placed his own poems written in French under the title "Poems for Different Occasions". This is Trediakovsky's pre-classical lyrics, which presents a purely personal, autobiographical theme. All the lyrics presented in the book are written in syllabic verse, but in four years Trediakovsky will decisively abandon the syllabic and propose a new system of versification instead.

In 1766, Trediakovsky published a book called "Tilemakhida or the Wanderings of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, described as part of an ironic poem" - a free translation of the novel by the early French educator Fenelon "The Adventures of Telemachus". Fenelon wrote his work in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV, when France suffered from devastating wars, the result of which was the decline of agriculture and crafts.

The historical and literary significance of "Tilemakhida" lies not only in its critical content, but also in the complex tasks that Trediakovsky set himself as a translator. In essence, this is not a translation, but a radical reworking of the very genre of the book. On the basis of the French novel, Trediakovsky created a heroic poem modeled on the Homeric epic and, in accordance with his task, called the book not The Adventures of Telemachus, but Tilemachida.

As noted in the preface, the plot of a heroic poem should not be connected with the ancient world, its heroes cannot be historically reliable persons of either ancient or modern times. The heroic poem should be written, according to Trediakovsky, only in hexameter. The choice of characters and the plot of "Tilemachida" fully meets the theoretical requirements of the author.

Trediakovsky carefully preserved the enlightening pathos of Fenelon's novel. The subject of condemnation is the supreme power, it is said about the despotism of rulers, about their addiction to luxury and bliss, about the inability of kings to distinguish virtuous people from greedy people and money-grubbers, about flatterers who surround the throne and prevent monarchs from seeing the truth.

Fenelon's novel, written largely in the footsteps of Barclay's Argenida, was intended by the author for his pupil, the grandson of Louis XIV, Duke of Burgundy, and, like Argenida, was full of vivid and very topical political content. Like Barclay, Fenelon is a staunch supporter of the monarchical principle, but at the same time, his novel, written towards the end of the reign of one of the most typical representatives of absolutism (“the sun king” - Louis XIV), is a cruel verdict on the entire state system of the latter, as you know, most detrimental to the life of the country, which brought France to the brink of complete economic and economic exhaustion. In contrast to this, Mentor teaches his pupil Telemachus in the novel, i.e. in essence, Fenelon to the Duke of Burgundy, the science of true state administration, which, as Trediakovsky explains, is “the middle between the excesses of despotic (self-predominant) power and the anarchic countless (without a leader).” This makes the author of Telemachus a bearer of the ideas of political liberalism, one of Montesquieu's immediate predecessors. In accordance with his accusatory satirical attitude, Fenelon sharply attacks the "evil kings". A number of verses of the Tilemakhida contain very strong and energetic tirades on the theme of wrong kings, who "do not love all those who boldly speak the Truth." Removed from the court, almost excommunicated from literature, Trediakovsky undoubtedly put a strong personal feeling into these poems.

The content of Tilemachida, as well as the novel of Fenelon, is a description of the travels of Odysseus's son Telemachus. Young Telemachus sets off in search of his father, who disappeared without a trace after the end of the Trojan War. The young man is accompanied by a wise mentor - Mentor. During his travels, Telemachus sees different countries with different rulers. This gives the author a reason for reasoning about the merits of certain forms of state power. Thus Mentor teaches Telemachus the ability to manage the people. Trediakovsky expresses here his cherished thoughts about the ideal state direction: of course, readers should have applied these considerations to Russian conditions. In his work, Trediakovsky stressed the importance of the monarch's observance of laws, both legal and "higher" laws of humanity. If the king is powerful over the people, then the laws are powerful over the sovereign, and he has no right to violate them. Subsequently, A.S. Pushkin will say:

You stand above the people

But the eternal law is above you!

Trediakovsky retells with pleasure the instructive story of the Cretan king Idomeneo. This king, distinguished by arbitrariness and lust for power, was expelled by the people from his country. Having learned the hard way that he was wrong, Idomeneo becomes the humane and law-respecting ruler of the city of Salanta. It was the idea of ​​the need to limit autocratic power, of the subordination of the ruler (like any citizen) that was not accepted by Catherine II.

I asked him, what does tsarist sovereignty consist in?

He answered: the king is powerful in everything over the people,

But the laws over him in everything are powerful, of course.

Tilemakhida evoked a different attitude towards itself both among contemporaries and descendants. Novikov and Pushkin praised her. Radishchev made one of her poems the epigraph to his Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. “His love for the Fenelon epic,” wrote Pushkin, “does him credit, and the idea of ​​translating it into verse and the very choice of verse proves an extraordinary sense of grace.” Catherine II took an irreconcilably hostile position. Her ill will was caused by criticisms of the autocrats. She introduced a humorous rule in the palace: for a light guilt one was supposed to drink a glass of cold water and read a page from the Tilemakhida, for a more serious one - to learn six lines from it. In Tilemakhida, Trediakovsky clearly demonstrated the variety of possibilities of the hexameter as an epic verse. Trediakovsky's experience was later used by N.I. Gnedich when translating the Iliad and V.A. Zhukovsky at work on the Odyssey.

The historical and literary significance of Trediakovsky is indisputable. Being a little gifted as a poet, Trediakovsky, the greatest philologist of his time, the author of many translations that had great cultural and educational significance, contributed to the development of new forms of literature in Russia, his works carried out progressive socio-political ideas for that time.

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The credo of V.K. Trediakovsky's life is vividly illustrated by his following statement: “I confess frankly that after the truth, I do not value anything else more dearly in my life than service, based on honesty and benefit, based on my compatriots honored by the grave.” It really explains a lot both in his work and in his personal life.

Creativity Trediakovsky is of a transitional nature. He came out of the school-rhetorical culture of the 17th century, found mine the way to a new philological culture, according to V. G. Belinsky, “ took on what should have been taken on first", became an educator in the modern European sense of the word, but up to his last works, he in a certain sense remained a man of culture of the 17th century(an adherent of the old, pre-Petrine culture, a philologist-erudite Latin)” (G.A. Gukovsky).

Biography notes:

1703 - was born in Astrakhan in the family of a parish priest, graduated from the school of Catholic monks of the Capuchin order (at that time the only educational institution in Astrakhan, from where he learned an excellent knowledge of the Latin language). There is evidence of the arrival in Astrakhan of Dmitry Kantemir and Peter I, who called Trediakovsky "an eternal worker" (which, in the end, was the main quality of Trediakovsky's personality).

Around 1723 - runs away from his parental home and enters the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (rhetoric class).

Around 1725 - the desire for "greater improvement" leads to the fact that he gets to Petersburg on foot (with a penny in his pocket), here a "desired opportunity" was discovered - and he sails on a Dutch ship to Amsterdam (where the envoy Golovkin arranges for him " with a fair treatise"), then goes to Paris, and again "in the manner of walking"; Prince Kurakin helps him decide at the Sorbonne, where he listens to courses in philosophy, theology, and the mathematical cycle.

1730 - return to Russia.

1732 - translator at the Academy of Sciences, court poet of Anna Ioannovna.

1745 - prof. Latin and Russian "eloquence" (rhetoric).

1759 - resignation.

1769 - death in poverty.

The first years at home - years of glory and honor, he is a professor of the Academy of Sciences - “this scientific dignity ... the first of the Russians had the good fortune to receive».

But already in the 50s. Trediakovsky wrote about his condition in the following way: “Hated in person, despised in word, destroyed in deeds, condemned in art, perforated by satirical horns, depicted as a monster, also in morals (which is more shameless) announced ... I have already exhausted infinitely in the strength to stay awake : for which reason the need has come for me to retire ... ".

Here are some facts, for example, Tilemakhida was ridiculed immediately after its appearance in 1766 (in the Hermitage, Catherine II arranged a special punishment for her friends: for any mistake, one page from this work had to be learned by heart).

In 1835, I. Lazhechnikov wrote in his novel The Ice House: “... a pedant! by this parcel fluttering on the forehead of every incompetent worker of learning, by the wart on the cheek, you would now guess the professor of eloquence you. Cyrus. Trediakovsky.

But there was also an opposite opinion. So, N.I. Novikov noted: “This man was of great intelligence, much teaching, vast knowledge and unparalleled diligence; extremely knowledgeable in Latin, Greek, French, Italian and in its natural language; also in philosophy, theology, eloquence and in other sciences, with his useful labors he gained immortal glory for himself ... "

A.N. Radishchev: “Trediakovsky will be dug out of a grave overgrown with moss of oblivion, in “Tilemakhida” there will be good verses and will be set as an example.”

A.S. Pushkin: “Trediakovsky was, of course, a decent and respectable person. His philological and grammatical researches are very remarkable. He had the most extensive concept in Russian versification. Love for the Fenelon epic does him credit, and the idea of ​​translating it into verse and the very choice of verse proves an extraordinary sense of elegance. There are many good verses and happy phrases in Tilemachida…”

Reasons for the ambivalent attitude of contemporaries and descendants towards Trediakovsky:

1. In the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, for those around him, he remained the court poet of Anna Ioannovna, dedicated his poems to Biron, and the death of A.P. Vorotynsky was associated with him.

2. His works contained rather sharp conclusions against autocracy, often acquiring a specific character (in Tilemakhida, for example, Catherine II is easily recognizable):

That Astarvea's wife was, like a goddess, very beautiful,

In a beautiful body she had a beautiful mind ...

A fierce heart boiled in her and filled with anger,

The mind, however, hid the thin sensuality cunningly.

Here, finally, she died, leaving in fear

All those who were dying there with her ...

Therefore, Catherine excluded him from public opinion, using a very evil weapon - laughter.

At the same time, the character of the poet and cultural figure bizarrely combined the insignificant and significant, the tragic and the comic, and there were some not entirely pleasant features: for example, claims, while not always justified, for the 1st place in Russian literature (and in literary Parnassus as a whole), not always worthy methods of literary struggle against Lomonosov and Sumarokov:

Sumarokov -

When, in your opinion, I am the owl and the cattle,

Then you yourself are a bat and truly a pig.

But you need to see the main thing in him - he had own way in literature, and he knew how to defend it!

His creative heritage is diverse and striking in scale:

I.Own art direction :

Presented by love, landscape, patriotic lyrics (combined under the heading "Poems for different occasions"); see: Timofeev p. 14 (introductory article to the collection "Selected Works" (M.., L., 1963)):

“This is the first printed collection of poems in history, owned by a certain poet, who addressed readers with a preface in his own name and with a certain poetic platform.

16 poems out of 32 were written in French, one in Latin, which characterized the author “as a representative of a new type of Russian culture, freely and with full knowledge of foreign culture.

The most significant thing is that in the collection, again for the first time in Russian literature, in poetry appeared new type of lyrical hero. His appearance was determined by the free and bold disclosure of the inner world, the desire for a multidimensional image of the human personality. This manifested itself primarily in the area love lyrics(“The Song of Love”, “Poems about the Power of Love”, “The Cry of a Lover Who Was Separated from His Darling, whom He Seen in a Dream”, “The Anguish of a Lover in Separation from His Mistress”, “Prayer of Love”, etc.) Against the background of the previous tradition, these verses sounded bold and new” (Ibid., p. 23):

Petition of love

Leave, Cupido, arrows:

Already we are not whole,

But sweetly wounded

love arrow

your gold;

All love is conquered:

Why hurt us more?

You're only torturing yourself longer.

Who does not breathe love?

Love does not bore us all,

Although we are melting and tormented.

Ah, this fire burns very sweetly!

It was these verses of Trediakovsky that answered the spiritual needs of a person of that time.:

I. Bolotov: “The most tender love, so much supported by gentle and loving songs composed in decent verses, then received its first dominance only over young people ... but they were still a great curiosity, and if any appeared, then young boyars and girls from the tongue was undescended.

T. Livanova: “... they made fun of Trediakovsky’s songs a lot, but no one seemed to emphasize with all their might that next to the poems “there are always two people in the most precious love”, the lines “the rope breaks, the anchor beats” were a real find of new poetry ".

However, Trediakovsky was by no means limited only to love experiences. These were just "poems for different occasions."

"Description of the former thunderstorm in The Hague" - example of landscape lyrics:

From one country thunder

On the other hand, thunder

Confused in the air

Terrible in the ear!

The clouds have fled

Carry the water

The sky is closed

Confused in fear.

Lightning flashes

Striking with fear

Crack in the forest from Perun,

And the moon darkens

Whirlwinds run with the ashes

The strip is tearing in one fell swoop,

Terrible roar of water

From that bad weather.

« Laudable Poems of Russia" start the tradition of Russian patriotic lyrics:

Mother Russia! My light is immeasurable!

Let me ask your faithful child,

Oh, how red you sit on the throne!

The sky is Russian, you are the sun clear!

Vivat Russia, Vivat Dragaya!

Vivat hope, vivat good.

I will die on the flute, poems are sad

In vain to Russia through distant countries:

I would need a hundred languages

Glorify everything that is cute in you!

And, finally, the collection contains verses in which “piit spoke ... in admiration for a certain one” (“A song composed in Hamburg for the solemn celebration of the coronation of Her Majesty Empress Anna Ioannovna the Autocrat of All Russia”, “Elegy on the death of Peter the Great”). They represent yourself transition from a panegyric and greeting verses for an event to an ode , i.e. a holistic image of a lyrical hero, through whose experiences the most important events of the era are reflected:

Triumph all Russian peoples:

We are in the golden years.

In 1734 ode genre is defined in the work of Trediakovsky and formally: in 1735, the “Solemn Ode on the surrender of the city of Gdansk” was published (a sample is Boileau’s ode on the capture of Nemur). The theoretical substantiation "Reasoning about the ode in general" was attached to the ode. Subsequently, we will talk about the opposition - loud Lomonosov / gentle Sumarokov lyrics, but in the primary form, both of these traditions were outlined by Trediakovsky. He tried to show the lyrical hero from various angles - both solemn and intimate.

In addition, Trediakovsky created epistles, epigrams, gave samples of the rondo, sonnet, madrigal, he was also engaged in transcribing psalms.

All poems published in 2 years. in 1752

In the field of poetics, he is characterized style of difficult poetic speech(Gukovsky); the sample is Latin syntax (free arrangement of words, Trediakovsky was especially captivated by the free space of interjection, the use of the union “a” in the meaning of “and”). The "Latin style" thus finds its Europeanized revival in Trediakovsky's poetry.

1. Was Virgil Scaron ridicule joking

(i.e. Scaron was witty enough to ridicule Virgil).

2. Unceasing love tormenting oh! Trouble…

So about! This captive is a very inclined god ...

3. Once the spider lagged behind labors and deeds,

BUT gathered, went along, the thought ordered where.

Attention is also drawn to the unprecedented in Russian poetry in the boundless freedom of combining Church Slavonicisms and colloquial vernacular:

Nightingale - "Slavy"

Korostol - "Krostel"

Brushwood - "brave"

and next to them:

Large luggage, etc.

We started talking about deafness of Trediakovsky to the word.

In 1750, Trediakovsky also made an attempt in the genre of tragedy on a mythological theme. She became "Deidamiya". In it, he expressed his own attitude:

1) to history - “it would be extreme dishonor to the French people and an intolerable insult, if such a sovereign would be some kind of prince Bova in an epic piima”;

2) to war - the cessation of wars connects with the reign of a wise and just enlightened monarch;

3) to the features of the tragic genre:

a) so, the plot is based on the stay of Achilles on the island of Skyros, where he was brought up, dressed in a woman's dress, along with the daughters of Lykodem, but since this legendary plot, according to the author, "is more appropriate for a" heroic comedy "than" tragic joke”, then he decided to “invent a lot of new things from himself” in order “to be a tragedy for the poem”, in particular, the motive associated with the promise of Tsar Lykodemus to dedicate Deidamia to the goddess Diana, which doomed his daughter to celibacy; the image of Navilia, in love with Achilles, is also fictional;

b) the tragedy should depict the triumph of virtue, the death of positive heroes is unacceptable, Deidamia is saved from the fate that awaited her, Navilia is punished for her intrigues;

c) an image-bearer of one trait (Achilles, Ulysses); tender feelings are already combined in heroes with an understanding of public duty; passion is interpreted as a destructive force;

d) the rule of 3 unities is observed: the unity of action as the unity of the hero; unity of time (action begins in the morning and ends in the evening); the unity of the place - the large chambers of Likodemova;

e) in the field of style - a rather strong epic element.

II.Translations:

A) artistic:P. Talman (Talleman) "Riding to the Island of Love", J. Barclay "Argenida", Fenelon "Adventures of Telemac"

P. Talman (Talleman) "Riding to the island of love." Translated from French in Russian. Through the student Vasily Trediakovsky and attributed to His Excellency Prince Alexander Bor. Kurakin.

The book was a huge success (see about this in detail: Timofeev, p. 15).

"Riding in about. Love”, according to P.N. Berkova, were a kind algebra of love, stated in a schematic abstract form all possible cases of love relationships. “The gallant courtesy of France appeared here in all its secular refinement, “politicality” (Ibid.).

Plot: In letters to a friend, Tirsis describes his experiences in conventionally symbolic images: hope, jealousy, the happiness of shared love, despair from the betrayal of his beloved (Amanta). However, he quickly recovers from despair, falling in love with two beauties at once and thereby discovering the secret of how to be happy: "whoever loves more, is happy longer."

Already alone book selection, where the whole content lies in the description of the various degrees of love for a woman, who is treated respectfully there, looking for an opportunity to attract her attention and, finally, earn her favor with various donations - all this could not but seem like news to the Russian reader of those times, when the most beloved and widespread collections could not do without an article in which love for a woman would not be called demonic obsession and the woman herself would not be considered an instrument of Satan, created to tempt man ”(Pekarsky). If Sumarokov wrote "Instruction to those who want to be writers", then "Riding to the island of love" is an instruction to those who want to be in love. But this is only part of the task that Trediakovsky set for himself: to instruct what love is according to precise canons meant not just translating a certain text, but transplanting (in the terminology of D.S. Likhachev) the cultural situation that gave rise to it. This is what Trediakovsky strove for. In the original situation of French precision, the cultural environment gave rise to novels of a certain type, and in the translated situation, the text of the novel was called upon to generate a cultural environment corresponding to it. Lotman writes about this in detail in the article "Riding to the Island of Love" by Trediakovsky and the function of translated literature in Russian culture of the first halfXVIII century:

Having plunged in France into the atmosphere of a completely secularized secular culture, which was new for him, Trediakovsky, first of all, drew attention to the fact that literary life has an organization that it has been molded into certain cultural and everyday forms, that literature and life are organically linked: “people of art and culture lead a special life,” which has its own organizational forms and gives rise to certain types of creativity. It was this situation, and not this or that work, that Trediakovsky, with the scope of an innovator, conceived to transfer to Russia. The French culture of the 17th century developed two forms of organization of cultural life: the Academy and the Salon. It is them that Trediakovsky would like to recreate in Russia. It is significant that in France the Academy organized by Richelieu and Madame Rambouillet's opposition "blue drawing room" were in complex and often antagonistic relations, but this was not significant for Trediakovsky, who, of course, was aware of the episodes of struggle, intrigue, rapprochement and conflict that occupied Paris. between the salons and the Academy. He did not take one side or another, because he wanted to transfer to Russia culturalthe situation as a whole.

The precision salon of the 17th century that arose in the conditions of a literary upsurge. was not a caricatured collection of simps and dandies, but a phenomenon full of serious cultural meaning. The salon - first of all, the salon of Madame Rambouillet, which became a kind of standard for all other salons of the era - was a phenomenon in opposition to the state centralization implanted by Richelieu. This opposition was not political: the seriousness of the state was opposed to the game, the official genres of poetry - intimate, the dictatorship of men - the domination of women, cultural unification on a nationwide scale - the creation of a closed and sharply limited from the rest of the world "Island of Love", "Country of tenderness", "Kingdom precision”, in the creation of maps of which Mademoiselle de Scudery, Molevrier, Gueret, Tallemand and others practiced. The sharp limitation from the rest of the world was a feature of the salon. Crossing its threshold, the chosen one (and only the chosen ones could cross the threshold), like any initiate, a member of the esoteric collective changed his name. He became Valère (Voiture) or Menandre (Menaj), Galatea (Countess Saint-Geran) or Menalida (daughter of Madame Rambouillet Julie, married Duchess Montozier). Somez quite seriously (albeit with a touch of irony) compiled a dictionary in which he supplied the esoteric names of the Preciosans with "translations". But the space was also renamed - from the real it became conditional and literary. Paris was called Athens, Lyon - Miletus, the suburb of Saint-Germain - Little Athens, the island of Notre Dame - Delos. The language of the salon tended to turn in closed, incomprehensible "foreign" jargon.

However, the isolation of the salon was not the goal, but the means. The authorities were suspicious of her. It is known that Richelieu ("Seneca", in the language of precision) demanded that the Marquise Rambouillet inform him of the nature of the conversations that took place in her salon. Arousing the wrath of the cardinal, the marquise refused, and only the intercession of the cardinal's niece, Mademoiselle Kombale, saved the salon from persecution. Although the Marquise Rambouillet did not hide her dislike for the “Great Alexander”, as the king was called in the language of precision salons, that her daughter Julie, according to the testimony of J. Tallement de Reo, used to say: “I’m afraid that my mother’s hatred for the King would not bring the curse of God is on her,” the political meaning of her opposition was insignificant. However, his instinct did not deceive Richelieu. The salons (not in their vulgarized imitations, but in their classical models of the 17th century) really posed a serious danger to absolutist centralism. Being closely connected with the humanistic tradition of the Renaissance, they opposed both despotic reality and the heroic myth about it created by classicism with the world of artistic utopia. Politics and the Reason that illuminated it were opposed to the Game and Caprice. But Reason was not expelled either: the precision world is not the world of baroque tragic madness. He only obeyed the laws of masquerade travesty that prevailed in the fine salon. Throughout the history of utopian travesty - from masquerade rituals to images of an inverted world, in the literature of the 16th-17th centuries. - an essential sign of utopianism is the desire to change the natural order, to make "a man and a woman one, so that a man would not be a man and a woman would not be a woman."

Concerning "Argenides" J. Barclay, then it gives the first artistic justification for the theory of absolute monarchy. Its influence is enormous on the entire generation that created French classicism. This is what she was interested in VK Trediakovsky.

The scheme of the plot boils down to the following: the Sicilian king Meleander, after a difficult struggle, defeated the powerful rebellious nobleman Lycogenes, whose party was joined by the Hyperephanians (understand - Calvinists); the court scholar Nicopomp (as if the author himself in the role of the hero of his novel) continuously gives advice to Meleander and preaches to him the correctness of the monarchical principle, while Lycogenes was still in power, he managed to remove Polyarch, loyal to the king, from the court; after the defeat of Lycogenes, Polyarch, who has long been in love with Argenis, the daughter of Meleander, receives her hand, and the novel ends with the triumph of love, which merges with the triumph of the king over the rebellious feudal lords. In the first floor 18th century in it they found a "lesson to the kings."

The Adventures of Telemachus by Fenelon and Trediakovsky's Telemachis

I. Fenelon conceived his novel as a new "Argenide" in the conditions of "spoilage", the decomposition of the absolute monarchy. His Telemachus became a transitional phenomenon from absolutist teaching to enlightenment. Fénelon still does not break with the principle of absolutism, but the sharp criticism of the devastating wars of Louis XIV, which led to the depletion of France, the indirect condemnation of his entire domestic policy, the lessons of the new liberal, state wisdom, the bold attacks on flatterers, the ulcer of the state made this novel an expression of the anti-monarchist mood of the minds.

II. There was another side to Fenelon's novel. He wanted to combine a political treatise with an entertaining narrative. He chooses a plot that gives him the opportunity to pour into his novel both his knowledge of ancient culture and the traditions of the “beauty” of Homer and Virgil.

Trediakovsky translates Fenelon's prose into verse. His goal is to translate the epigone style into the language of the original source. And as a result - really amazing lines:

The luminous day has faded, darkness creeps over the ocean...

Hence the name, not a novel, but Homeric, epic. Trediakovsky, therefore, belongs to the merit of creating Russian hexameter , and Telemachis in this regard must be correlated with Gnedich's Iliad and Zhukovsky's Odyssey.

It is known that Gnedich reread Telemachida three times.

B) historical translations

Rollin "Ancient history" - 10 tons;

"Roman History" - 16 volumes;

Crevier "History of the Roman Emperors" - 4 volumes.

All these translations burned down in a fire, Trediakovsky translated them again.

III. Scientific works: "A new and concise way to add up Russian poetry with definitions of hitherto proper knowledge" (1735); "On the ancient, middle and new Russian poem" (1752).

"A new and concise way to add up Russian poetry with definitions of hitherto proper knowledge" (1735) laid the foundation for the reform of Russian versification. Trediakovsky proceeded from two positions:

a) the way verses are composed depends on the natural properties of the language;

b) Russian versification should be based on the correct alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables; reliance on folk poetry - where "the sweetest, most pleasant and most correct stop fall" is observed.

In turn, the foot is "a measure or part of a verse, consisting of 2 syllables for us."

However, the author combined the spread of the new system with restrictive restrictions:

1) it was proposed to use it only in 11.13 syllables;

3) the trochee is the most common for him;

4) female rhyme is preferred, alternation of rhymes is not allowed.

M.V. Lomonosov ("Letter on the rules of Russian poetry") (1731) removed these restrictions, and Trediakovsky took this fact into account in the new treatise "The Method for Adding Russian Poetry Against the Issued in 1735, Corrected and Supplemented" (1752).

Trediakovsky also owns treatises on certain genres of literature:

"Reasoning about the ode in general";

"Foreword about ironic piima";

"A Discourse on Comedy in General".

Language reform:

1. The use of a “simple Russian word” (a worldly book, Old Slavonic “I hear it harsh to my ears” - regarding Talman’s translation);

2. The desire to bring Russian spelling closer to its phonetic basis (“as the ringing requires”);

3. The struggle to preserve the purity of the Russian language (“read not a single one used a foreign word” - about “Argenida”);

4. He noted the phenomenon of folk etymology;

5. Introduced "unity sticks" - the designation of continuous pronunciation;

6. Actively introduced neologisms (especially within the framework of love vocabulary, unfortunately, not always successfully: gatherings in the meaning of a date, etc.).

Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky(Tredyakovsky) (February 22 (March 5), 1703, Astrakhan - August 6, 1769, St. Petersburg) - a famous Russian scientist and poet of the 18th century.

Biography

Born in the family of the priest Kirill Yakovlevich Trediakovsky. He studied at the school of Capuchin monks and was supposed to be ordained, but, for unknown reasons, in 1723 he fled to Moscow and entered the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. Here he wrote his first dramas "Jason" and "Titus Vespasian's son", as well as "Elegy on the Death of Peter the Great" and "Song", which have not come down to us.

In 1726, Trediakovsky, without completing his course at the Academy, went to Holland and spent two years in The Hague. He had to live in poverty abroad: his request to Russia "to determine the annual salary" for the completion of theological and philosophical sciences was not respected, because he was listed as having fled from the Academy. In Paris, where he came "on foot for his extreme poverty," he studied mathematics and philosophy at the Sorbonne, listened to theology, and took part in public disputes.

Returning to Russia in 1730, Trediakovsky published a translation of Paul Thalmann's novel Riding to the Island of Love. The translation was accompanied by verses by Trediakovsky himself, in Russian, French and Latin. The success of the book was ensured by the very content of the book, dedicated to depicting the feelings of graceful love, new at that time for Russian readers. In the same book, Trediakovsky placed a preface in which he first expressed the idea of ​​using the Russian language in literary works, and not the Church Slavonic language, as it had been before that time.

In 1732 he was accepted into the service of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Academician since 1745.

Trediakovsky was actively engaged in translations and published the nine-volume Ancient History by Rollin, and the sixteen-volume Roman History by the same author. In 1766 he published Telemachis, a free translation of Fenelon's The Adventures of Telemachus, made in hexameter. The work and its author immediately become the object of ridicule and attacks, so in the “Hermitage Etiquette” of Empress Catherine II, a comic punishment for light guilt was established: “If someone stumbles against the above, then, according to the evidence of two witnesses, for any crime he must drink a glass of cold water , not excluding the ladies, and read the page of "Tilemakhida" (Tretyakovskiy). And whoever opposes three articles in one evening, he is guilty of learning the six lines of the Tilemachida by heart.

Son Lev (1746-1812) - Ryazan, Yaroslavl and Smolensk governor.

Reform of Russian versification

Trediakovsky is one of the founders of syllabo-tonic versification in Russia.

The poetry of the 16th - early 17th century was built on a syllabic basis, that is, the stresses in the verse were not ordered, only the number of syllables was fixed. This type of verse came to Russia from Poland.

In 1735 Trediakovsky published A New and Brief Method for Composing Russian Poems. In this work, he introduced the concept of a poetic foot, and on its basis - the concept of iambic and trochaic. Trediakovsky proposed to build poetic lines on the basis of a chorea: "that verse ... is perfect and better, which consists only of choreas ... and that one is very thin, which all the iambs make up." In fact, Trediakovsky proposed updating the traditional meters of syllabic versification (13- and 11-syllables) by introducing constant stress and caesura.

In his work, Trediakovsky also gave definitions of various genres: sonnet, rondo, epistles, elegies, odes, etc.; gives numerous examples.

Lomonosov criticized the versification proposed by Trediakovsky. In the "Letter on the Rules of Russian Poetry" (1739), he pointed out that, in addition to the trochaic, Russian poetry can use iambic, as well as tripartite sizes - dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest. Lomonosov also challenged Trediakovsky's assertion that only feminine rhymes could be used in verse by introducing masculine and dactylic rhymes into Russian verse.

In general, Trediakovsky accepted the system proposed by Lomonosov, and even rewrote several of his previous odes so that they corresponded to the new rules of versification. However, one issue prompted further discussion:

Lomonosov believed that iambic meters are suitable for writing heroic works, in particular an ode, and a trochee "having tenderness and pleasantness by nature, should be only an elegiac kind of poem." Sumarokov was of the same opinion. Trediakovsky, on the other hand, believed that the size itself does not carry any emotional connotations.

This dispute found the following continuation: the arguing poets published the book "Three odes paraphrastic psalm 143". In it, the same psalm was translated by Lomonosov and Sumarokov - iambic, and Trediakovsky - chorea.

Creation

Creativity Trediakovsky caused a lot of controversy both during the life of the author and after his death. On the one hand, partly under the influence of the opinions of the court and literary groups opposing him, Trediakovsky remained in history as an incompetent poet, a court intriguer, plotting against his talented colleagues. I. I. Lazhechnikov’s novel The Ice House, published in 1835, supported this myth, which led to the fact that during the 19th century the name Trediakovsky was often used as a common noun to refer to a mediocre poet. At the same time, A.S. Pushkin, in an article about Radishchev's book "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow," speaks of Trediakovsky as follows: " Tredyakovsky was, of course, a respectable and decent man. His philological and grammatical researches are very remarkable. He had a broader concept in Russian versification than Lomonosov and Sumarokov. His love for the Fenelon epic does him honor, and the idea of ​​translating it into verse and the very choice of verse prove an extraordinary sense of elegance. The Tilemakhida contains many good verses and happy phrases... In general, the study of Tredyakovsky is more useful than the study of our other old writers. Sumarokov and Kheraskov are certainly not worth Tredyakovsky...»

A number of modern authors call Trediakovsky the founder of the Russian lyrics of the New Time, Russian classicism of the 18th century with its ancient European origins, one of the most fruitful ideologists and practitioners of Russian bucolic poetry, etc.

Trediakovsky's early work undoubtedly turns out to be in line with the so-called. Russian literary baroque with its characteristic pomp of style, layers of metaphors, inversions, Church Slavonicisms. At the same time, being an innovator, Trediakovsky laid down the main lines of formation of Russian lyrics of the new time, brilliantly developed later by Zhukovsky and Pushkin. Trediakovsky's later poems gravitate toward the emerging classicist tradition created by his contemporary Lomonosov and Sumarokov. However, Trediakovsky did not succeed in becoming an "exemplary classicist".

"Songs of the World" love lyrics

The first song compositions of Trediakovsky date back to 1725-1727, that is, the time of his studies at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, but the most interesting works created in this genre should be considered Russian love poems, which originated under the influence of French salon songs in the 30s of the 18th century , i.e. during Trediakovsky's studies in Paris. According to N. P. Bolshukhina, at the beginning of the 18th century, “Love (and, more broadly, secular) song was ... beyond the limits of ideas about poetry, poetry. Only in the 30s of the XVIII century it will be recognized as a specific genre and ... included by Trediakovsky in the system of national lyrical genres. As one of the characteristic examples of such creativity, one can take "Poems about the power of love." In it, Trediakovsky refers to ancient and biblical images, noting the extra-spatial and extra-cultural power of love, which "is a great thing." Such a performance was very in the spirit of the French song tradition, but for Russian poetry it was new. In a private letter, Trediakovsky wrote that “nature itself, this beautiful and tireless mistress, takes care to teach all youth what love is.” The strong influence of French song lyrics can also be noted in the poem "The Song of Love" (1730). The poem is written in couplet form, and the two final lines of each couplet form a refrain. There is a characteristic of French poetry, the presence of male rhyme next to the female. Love in the poem is seen as an impulse, unconscious and not amenable to reflection. The lyrical hero "dies about love", unable to figure out what is happening to him.

In art

• The biographical historical novel “Harlequin” by Pyotr Aleshkovsky, the historical novels “The Fugitive” and “The Island of Love” by Yuri Nagibin, as well as the cycle of poetry “Dedicated to Vasily Trediakovsky” by Vadim Shefner are dedicated to the life of Trediakovsky.
• Trediakovsky is one of the characters in the following historical novels: Ice House by Ivan Lazhechnikov, Biron and Volynsky by Pyotr Polezhaev, Word and Deed by Valentin Pikul.

The material is taken from the site http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Kirillovich_Trediakovsky

However, his creative heritage was not appreciated by his contemporaries. Only later, already in the 19th century, his translations and original writings received recognition. The reason for this belated success is that the author's contemporaries sought to create an easy literary language, while the poet was a supporter of complex versification, focusing on the best examples of antiquity and imitating them.

Childhood and youth

Vasily Trediakovsky was born in 1703 in the family of an Astrakhan priest. He graduated from the Latin school, which was founded at the Catholic mission in the city. As a child, he sang in the church choir. He carried his passion for music throughout his life, later even starting to compose his own compositions. Little information about his youth has been preserved, only a notebook with a quatrain remains, which testifies to the boy's early passion for poetry.

The future poet was going to initially enter the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, but for unknown reasons he did not go there, but instead went to Moscow. From 1723 to 1725, Vasily Trediakovsky studied at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy at his own expense. At this time, he seriously took up literature: he composed his own novel and translated some works from Latin. After two years of study, he had the opportunity to travel abroad, so he left the academy.

Euro-trip

Vasily Trediakovsky lived for some time in The Hague, but soon left this country and moved to Paris, where he settled with the head of the Russian diplomatic mission. In general, very little is known about the time of the poet's stay in European countries, however, the surviving news suggests that he received a good education in However, he did not manage to pass the bachelor's exams, because they were paid, and the poet had no money .

Nevertheless, this stage was important in his work, because he got acquainted with French culture, enlightenment, which had a great influence on him, although, of course, in just two years he could not fully imbue the new ideas of European ideology for him. From 1729 to 1730 the poet lived in Hamburg. Vasily Trediakovsky, whose work by that time had already taken shape as pro-European, met with local intellectuals, studied music and wrote some poems. In addition, he was a member of the circle of Russian diplomats, communication with which raised his cultural level.

First success

Returning to his homeland, the poet was assigned to the Academy of Sciences as a student, which was a great success, since it opened up great opportunities for him in the scientific world. In 1730 he published his translation of the French novel Ride to the Island of Love. It became a real event in the cultural life. This romantic courtly work immediately gained great popularity among the reading public. After the publication of this work, Vasily Trediakovsky remained the most popular author. The poet accompanied his work with a collection of poems of his own composition.

Versification reform

In the 1730s, the poet began to change the Russian literary language. Trediakovsky sought to separate prose and poetry and considered the standard of the latter to be Latin versification, to which he tried to adapt Russian poetry. However, he was immediately criticized for the complex construction of sentences, unclear meaning, and intricate grammatical construction. The poet often resorted to inversion, actively used interjections, which, in the view of literary scholars of that time, complicated and spoiled the lyrics.

Meaning

Vasily Trediakovsky, whose brief biography is the subject of this review, left a noticeable mark on his experiments, scientific research in the field of literature, disputes with Lomonosov and Sumarokov contributed to the emergence of domestic criticism and original works in various genres. He also made a great contribution as a translator. So, thanks to him, the Russian reader got acquainted with the works of the French scientist on ancient history. At the end of his life, his health deteriorated, and he died in 1769.