Biography of Kuchelbecker summary. The meaning of küchelbecker wilhelm karlovich in a brief biographical encyclopedia

(Text of the radio program from the cycle "Contemporaries of the Classics": 1. Vasily Zhukovsky; 2. Konstantin Batyushkov; 3. Pyotr Vyazemsky; 4. Vasily Pushkin; 5. Anton Delvig)

PREFACE TO THE CYCLE

The cycle of radio programs under the heading "The Soul of a Poet" is called "Contemporaries of the Classics" conditionally, and, of course, does not fully reflect the true picture of the literary process. Rather, it is a play on words and meanings, a kind of allusion referring to the popular literary series Classics and Contemporaries.

The purpose of the programs is, first of all, education - a reminder of the known (mainly to specialists or those who are especially interested in literature) the facts of the life and work of authors whose names and some works are well-known - but nothing more. Despite the fact that this is an explicit literary compilation, it is still based on the personal view of the author and the presenter of the programs on the personality and work of a particular poet. I hope that, at least sketchily, I manage to describe the atmosphere of the era referred to in the programs. In addition, it must be borne in mind that these texts are an integral part of the "literary and musical" compositions aired on the radio "Harmony of the World" (Odessa).

The format of the programs is one, two or three episodes lasting 14-15 minutes, but here double and triple episodes are combined into one single text for ease of reading.

6. WILHELM KUCHELBECKER

We continue our acquaintance with the poets of Pushkin's time, who not only worked in the same era as Alexander Sergeevich, but were close to him in spirit, and many, to a greater or lesser extent, even influenced Pushkin himself. But today we will turn to the life and work of the poet, to whom Pushkin himself treated no less warmly than to Anton Delvig, but whose work practically did not affect the genius of Russian literature in any way - well, except for the epigrams composed by Pushkin and dedications addressed to the lyceum comrade.

We are talking about Wilhelm Karlovich Kuchelbecker - a tragic and touching personality, who for many years was forgotten by his descendants as a poet, writer, who was known only as a friend of Pushkin and an exiled Decembrist. Meanwhile, having opened a selection of Küchelbecker's poems, it is already impossible to tear oneself away from it:

In the morning hour of being, when there is still a feeling of delight,
The feeling of the suffering of the living quietly slumbered in me, -
The mind, immersed in darkness, did not remove the cover from Nature,
With a childish smile, I still looked at the universe.
But even then, by magical power, a thoughtful month
Inexplicable beauty attracted my eyes:
Often I, sitting in front of the window in the evening, disappeared into the ocean
Immeasurable skies, drowned in the abyss of worlds.
I used to leave games: above the murmur of quiet-jet waters
Sweet full of melancholy, carried away into the distance by a dream, -
Mystery for myself, careless baby, I'm tears
(I did not know their reasons), sacred tears poured;
Silent at midnight. On a peaceful bed I foresaw eternity;
With the swaying forests embraced by sweet cold,
Early I loved to listen to the storm's dull lamentation.
The rustle of falling leaves filled me with trepidation;
I hear, it seemed, a familiar voice in the air, - silent,
I direct my hearing into the distance - silence is everywhere, but the distance
In secret conversation with me. - O hosts of innumerable luminaries!
I flew to you with my soul, and now I'm flying to you:
Or is my fatherland over you? over you with your family
United by a pure soul, will I ascend to the god of love?

This poem, written by Kuchelbecker in 1817 - in the last year of his stay at the Lyceum - is called "Fatherland", but despite such a patriotic title, the reader almost from the first lines understands that this is not about the earthly homeland, but about the homeland of the spirit, from where each of us is born, but not everyone is able to realize this so deeply, and to tell about it so simply and clearly.

This, in my opinion, is the tragedy of Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker - his understanding of the truth always ran into the rudeness of real life, his heightened sense of justice constantly pushed him into conflicts, and already at the Lyceum he was known as a touchy and quick-tempered fighter. But it is not difficult to understand him if you try to imagine yourself in the place of a clumsy, thin teenager who became not just an object of ridicule (after all, everyone in the Lyceum made fun of each other in one way or another), but these jokes were often really not only offensive, but also cruel .
Here, for example, is an epigram on Kuchelbeker of the lyceum student Alexei Illichevsky:

No, that's enough, wise men, to deceive you light
And claim that there is no perfection.
In the world, in a perishable creature,
Appear, Vilinka, and prove yourself
That you are both body and soul
Freak perfect.

Speaking of Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, one cannot help but refer to the novel by Yuri Tynyanov, an excellent connoisseur of Pushkin's literary era, who easily presented the poet's life in a tragic light. Once, the archive of Kuchelbecker came to him, which had been kept for many years by the editor of the magazine "Russian Antiquity" Semevsky. Very famous writers knew about this archive, including the writer Leo Tolstoy and the critic Strakhov. But only Tynyanov became seriously interested in this figure forgotten in literature, and studied the fate of Pushkin's comrade thoroughly - from poems, most of which until that time practically nobody knew, to archival documents, memoirs and personal letters. Yuri Tynyanov himself was a subtle poet, just like Küchelbecker, a little “out of this world”, and the result of his immersion in the era and biography of this extraordinary personality was not only reports on the work of the forgotten writer, but also the biographical novel “Kyukhlya”, published in 1925.

However, let's go back to the lyceum years and to the lyceum comrades. Tynyanov, for example, described the aforementioned Illichevsky, and his relationship with Kuchelbecker rather impartially. Nevertheless, here is what Vilinka himself wrote on the eve of graduation in 1817 (as his friends jokingly called him):

To Illichevsky's album

Farewell, classmate!
Comrade for a pen!
Comrade on Parnassus!
Comrade at the table!
Farewell, and in the noise of light
Don't forget me
Don't forget the poet
To whom are you the first way,
The path is slippery but beautiful
He pointed the way to the Muses.
Although biased towards novelty,
I often retreated
From the old Russian rules,
You guided me along the way
You told me: "Write"
And sin from my soul -
Will I slaughter Maron
Will I torture myself
by Apollo's decision
Be dumped on you.

Well, perhaps after six years of living under the same roof, in the same class, old grievances were indeed forgotten by them, and, most likely, these years were not so tragic for Kuchelbecker - at least in the last years of study at the Lyceum. In addition, he had close friends who loved and understood his subtle nature, and condescendingly endured his quick-tempered character. And he also sincerely loved them with the full devotion of his soul. These friends are Anton Delvig and Alexander Pushkin. Here is his message to both comrades, whom he remembered when he visited Tsarskoe Selo a year after graduating from the Lyceum, which he named -

To Pushkin and Delvig
From Tsarskoye Selo

Arches of native elms bent over me,
Quiet coolness of spreading birches!
Here we have a familiar meadow; here is a grove, here is a cliff,
On top of which the sons of young freedom,
Pets, minions and Phoebe and Nature,
We used to tear through the density of trees
And they left the smooth path with contempt for the weak!
O sweet time, where I knew no sorrow!
Forever the world of my soul has disappeared
And abandoned me aerial dreams?
I find joy in one memory,
Eyes full of involuntary tears!
Alas, they have passed, my spring years!
But I don't want to grieve: I'm here again, again!
I stand above the lake, and mirror waters
They show me a hill, a wood, and a bridge, and the whole coast,
And the clear azure of cloudless skies!
Here often I sat in the midnight glimmer,
And above me the moon rolled in silence!
Here are peaceful places where sublime muses,
Their heavenly flame and holy joys,
Impulse for the great, love for the good for the first time
We also learned where our tripartite union is,
Union of young singers, both pure and sacred,
A magical skill, a prisoner of fate,
Was approved by friendship!
And he will be unforgettable for us to the grave!
Neither joy nor pain
Neither bliss, nor self-interest, nor honors seeking -
Nothing will take my soul away from you!
...
O others! why don't I wander with you?
Why don't I say, I don't argue here with you,
Do I not look at the lush garden from this tower with you?
Or intertwined hands
Why not together we listen to the sound of the waters,
Beating sparks and foam on a stone?
Not together we look here at the sunrise,
On a flame dying out at the edge of the sky?
Everything here and with you would be a dream to me,
Incoherent, vague dream,
Everything, everything that I met, saying goodbye to solitude,
All I have is clarity and peace,
And the silence of the soul of an infant was taken away
And my heart hurt so much!
With you, comrades, my blood will subside.
And in my native country I will forget for a moment
Worries, and longing, and boredom, and excitement,
I will forget, perhaps, love itself!

Surprisingly, reading these lines, I personally find it hard to believe that the main goal of ridicule and offensive criticism at the Lyceum was not only the ungainly tall figure of Vili, his deafness, his irascibility, but mainly his poetry. After all, even Pushkin, dearly beloved by him, at first urged his classmate to leave the poetic field, and the first published poem by Pushkin himself - the same one, “To a Poet Friend”, sent to the magazine by Delvig, was addressed specifically to Wilhelm Küchelbecker. And what do we read in it?

Arist, believe me, leave the pen, ink,
Forget streams, forests, sad graves,
Do not blaze with love in cold songs;
In order not to fly off the mountain, go down rather.
There are and will be enough poets without you;
They will be printed - and the whole world will forget ... -

Written by a friend Pushkin in 1814. But the stubborn Vilinka did not listen to anyone, and despite ridicule, mistrust and misunderstanding, he wrote poetry - just as his own soul demanded. And already in the year of graduation from the Lyceum, in 1817, both the content and intonations in Pushkin's dedication "Separation" to the same Kuchelbecker were completely different:

AT last hour, in the shadow of solitude,
Our penat listens to my verses!
Lyceum life dear brother,
I share with you the last moments!
So, they have passed - the years of union;
So, it is broken - our fraternal, faithful circle!
Forgive! .. kept by a secret sky,
Do not be separated, dear friend,
With fortune, friendship and Phoebus.
Know the love I don't know
Love of hopes, delights, ecstasy!
And your days are a flight of dreams
Let them fly in happy silence!
...

So, Pushkin not only recognized in Kuchelbeker a close-minded comrade, but also that he was also under the protection of Phoebus-Apollo, the patron of sciences and arts. And besides, on another occasion he somehow predicted to a “poet friend”: “be afraid of oblivion.” Obviously, Pushkin also had in mind the somewhat archaic poetic style of Kuchelbecker, who, like Delvig, preferred complex, grandiloquent meters, in particular, hexameter, and, probably, the somewhat abstract content of poetry. Although the oblivion of Küchelbecker the writer, paradoxical as it sounds, overtook him due to his involvement in the Decembrist conspiracy, and his exile to Siberia that followed his arrest.

But first, let's remember the early years of the poet - after all, everything that happens to us from birth affects our character traits and forms the foundations of personality, and therefore the foundations of the worldview and possible actions. Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker was born in St. Petersburg on June 10, 1797 in the family of a German nobleman who entered the Russian service in 1770. His father, Karl-Heinrich, was an educated man - suffice it to say that he studied at the University of Leipzig together with Radishchev and Goethe, with whom, by the way, he maintained friendly relations until his death (his father died when the boy was 12 years old). Moreover, while traveling through Europe, Wilhelm was lucky to meet and communicate with the great German poet, who was already quite old, but gladly accepted the son of his old friend.

Wilhelm reacted sharply to the beauty of the world around him (as a child he spent a long time at the Avinorm estate in Estonia), and to injustice or misunderstanding, if any, happened in his generally happy childhood life: the family not only loved all the children but also paid great attention to their upbringing and education. So, even before studying at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Wilhelm studied at a private boarding school, however, when his father died and his mother was left alone with four children, she was especially worried about Wilhelm's future.

As already mentioned, both Anton Delvig and little Pushkin were not only impressionable and withdrawn children, but also not quite understandable to adults. The same can be said about Wilhelm Küchelbecker. However, he was not closed, but as a result of a serious illness suffered at the age of 9, he not only developed physical disabilities (in particular, nervous twitches), but this illness, as they say, became the cause of his excessive irascibility, and even exaltation.

So, shortly before studying at the Lyceum, he childishly fell in love with a neighbor's girl and thought out a whole plan for their flight, secret wedding and subsequent repentance at their parents' feet. Fortunately, it was then that the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was opened, and at the request of Barclay de Tolly himself, the then Minister of War, the boy was admitted to a new prestigious educational institution, and what is important for the parents who sent their children there, the institution is free. Here, as we have already said, Wilhelm not only studied the sciences, but also began to actively write poetry - thanks to his inherent enthusiasm and ardor, so actively that for a long time was known among the lyceum comrades as a desperate graphomaniac ...

However, among all the lyceum poets, he was almost the most educated, not only knowing German and French well, but to the point of self-forgetfulness he loved the Russian language and Russian culture. Without a doubt, the husband of his older sister Justina, professor of Russian and Latin languages, Grigory Andreevich Glinka, had a significant influence on Wilhelm. By the way, unlike the relatives of other students, he regularly sent the boy books and magazines, which, of course, his lyceum comrades also read, absorbing everything new that appeared at that time in Russian literature.

Oh Delvig, Delvig! what a reward
And high deeds, and poetry?
What and where is the joy of talent
Among villains and fools?
Herds of mortals envy rules;
Mediocrity is worth it
And presses with a heavy heel
Young chosen ones are harit.
Why did I read their tablets?
I rest my sorrow
Nowhere, nowhere found!
...
Oh Delvig! Delvig! what is persecution?
Immortality is equal
And bold, inspirational deeds,
And sweet singing!
So! our union will not die,
Free, joyful and proud,
And solid in happiness and misfortune,
Union of favorites of eternal muses!
Oh you, my Delvig, my Eugene!
From the dawn of your quiet days
Heavenly Genius loved you!
And you are our young Corypheus, -
Singer of love, singer Ruslana!
What is the hiss of snakes to you,
What is the cry and Owl and Raven? -
Fly and break out of the fog
From the darkness of envious times.
O others! song of simple feeling
Will reach future tribes -
Our whole age will be devoted
Labor and joys of art;
So what? let the crowd despise us:
She's crazy and blind!

This is an excerpt from Wilhelm Küchelbecker's poem "Poets" of 1820, written by him after Pushkin's exile to the south, and perceived by everyone as an open condemnation of the authorities. Looking ahead, I note that after that the friends met only once, in October 1827, at the deaf Zalazi postal station, where Pushkin, on his way from Mikhailovsky to St. However, both before and after that, friends kept in touch constantly.

Returning to the scandalous poem, let's say that few people expected such a trick from a prosperous young man - an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a teacher at the Noble Boarding School in St. Petersburg, where, by the way, the future great Russian composer Mikhail Glinka studied. However, a heightened sense of justice, combined with the ardor of a pure, open soul, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker constantly pushed him to reckless actions - namely, reckless ones, which were guided not by reason, but by emotions.

After the public reading of the poem “Poets” in the Free Society, Küchelbecker himself was in danger of becoming persona non grata in St. Petersburg, and here he was rescued by Delvig, who, referring to his famous laziness, refused to travel around Europe as secretary of the rich nobleman Naryshkin, and offered this place to Wilhelm. He happily agreed: this not only allowed him to improve his financial situation, but most importantly, to see Europe, the cradle of modern revolutions, where protests against monarchies broke out every now and then. But, having barely left Russia, Kuchelbecker yearned for his comrades and for the thirst for action in the name of freedom in his homeland:

Peace above the sleeping abyss
Peace over valley and mountain;
Rhine smooth plain
Spread out before me.
…
Here, above the eternal streams,
In this long-desired hour,
Others! I'm dreaming with you;
Brethren! I see you!

This cup is for you, weighed down
Moisture clean and golden;
I drink for our sacred union,
I drink for the Russian native land!

But the wave runs and splashes
In an unanswered boat;
Why is my chest trembling
What darkens my soul?
…
I hear the bird of omens
Dick her dull moan -
Bright crowd of dreams
And he drives hope!

Oh, tell me, inhabitant of the oak forest,
The languid, plaintive prophet:
Or take me to the field of glory
Irresistible rock awaits?

Or happy hugs
Don't extend to my dear ones
And to the chest of the trembling brothers
When meeting, do not press?

Let me fall for freedom
For the love of my soul
A sacrifice to a glorious people
Pride of weeping friends!

The poem "To Friends, on the Rhine" was written in 1821, but Kuchelbecker's soul seemed to foresee - or called - the catastrophe of the Russian noble revolt of 1825. However, this was still far away, and young Wilhelm dreamed of escaping to Greece to the Carbonari. When in Paris he was offered to give a series of lectures on Russian literature at the anti-monarchist club "Ateney", he gladly agreed, and with his characteristic recklessness and openness, he used the lecture chair as a tribune to proclaim his views on the state of affairs in Russian society: "The history of the Russian language, perhaps, will reveal to you the character of the people who speak it. Free, strong, rich, it arose before serfdom and despotism were established, and subsequently represented a constant antidote to the harmful effects of oppression and feudalism,” Wilhelm Küchelbecker said at his very first lecture, which he called “The Properties of Our Poetry and Language ".

What remained for the cautious Naryshkin to do - he sent a dangerous companion back to Russia, and since then Küchelbecker has been closely monitored. Now he was not taken to the service, there was no means of subsistence again, and at the request of his friends, in particular, Alexander Turgenev, he was appointed an official for special assignments in the Caucasus, in Tiflis - at the headquarters of the famous and extremely popular General Yermolov among young people. Kuchelbecker was happy - it seemed to him that now he could do something for freedom, and even offered Yermolov ... to escape to Greece in order to take part in the revolution there. This was the period of his enthusiastic adoration of the general:

O! how contemptuous the singer is,
Flatterer of vile autocracy!
Yermolov, there is no other happiness
For proud, fiery hearts,
How to live in distant centuries
And glory to dazzle the descendants of the astonished!

... Yes, it will be silent before me
A crowd of jealous fools
When I am my hero
To the enemy of trembling flatterers,
I will tune my lyre loudly
And I will tell the listening world about it!

He proudly scorned slander,
He brought me back to my homeland:
I give him all the moments of my life
I will dedicate in sweet delight;
Treachery will perish with a noise,
And I will stand clean before the formidable offspring!

He wrote this dedication to Yermolov in 1821, but when he found himself in a separate Caucasian corps led by a general, Wilhelm became disillusioned with his hero: he, following the laws of war, cruelly suppressed the slightest disobedience of the freedom-loving highlanders. However, it was here, in Georgia, that Kuchelbecker became close to Alexander Griboedov, already familiar to him from teaching at the Noble Boarding School, who was stingy with trust in people, but it was Kuchelbeker who opened up, and he was the first and only one to read his revolutionary play "Woe from Wit". Until the end of his days, Wilhelm considered Griboyedov not only his closest friend, but spiritually and aesthetically close poet.

However, in Georgia, the decent and quick-tempered Kuchelbecker very soon again showed himself to be an unreliable person, provoking a duel with one of the employees under Yermolov. And here, in the Caucasus, he was dangerous for the authorities - to the extent that they hoped for the death of an unpredictable young man from a random Caucasian bullet. However, Kuchelbecker escaped this fate, and he was sent to Russia, where again lack of money and unsettled life awaited him, and at the insistence of his relatives, Kuchelbecker came to his sister Yustina at the Zakup estate in the Smolensk province, where he lived from July 1822 to July 1823.

During this year, which he lived in the family of his older sister, he delved into the life of the common people, and, wanting to be closer to him, he was weird - so the neighbors, and the peasants themselves said - because for everyone he was a gentleman. He walked around in simple clothes specially made for him, and once stood up for a serf, who was publicly mocked by a neighboring landowner, so that this misunderstanding, interpreted by a neighbor as disrespect, had to be settled by his sister's husband, Alexei Glinka.

Here, in Zakupe, Wilhelm fell in love with a distant relative of Alexander Pushkin, Avdotya Timofeevna Pushkin, and the love was mutual. Dunya was a pure, devoted and wise girl, Wilhelm dedicated his few love poems to her:

A wilted flower comes to life
From pure, morning dew;
Resurrects the soul for life
The gaze of quiet, virgin beauty...

They became a bride and groom, but Wilhelm Küchelbecker could not marry: he was poor and understood that he could not provide for his family. In the hope of strengthening his position, he again went to Moscow and St. Petersburg. He still could not get a decent place, and tried to earn a living by literary work - so, together with Odoevsky, he founded the literary almanac Mnemosyne, where Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Griboedov, Baratynsky, and Kuchelbecker himself were published. However, if at first the almanac attracted the attention of readers and brought some income to both authors and publishers, then with each new issue the interest of the public became less and less, and, accordingly, incomes also fell.

During this period, Wilhelm Küchelbecker became close to Ryleev and other "conspirators", sharing their hopes for the reorganization of society with all his heart. When, in September 1825, Ryleyev's cousin died in a duel defending the honor of his sister, Kuchelbecker wrote an angry poem, perceived by both the authorities and his like-minded people as a revolutionary manifesto:

We swear on honor and Chernov:
Enmity and abuse of temporary workers,
King of trembling slaves,
Tyrants, ready to oppress us!
...
So, they don’t speak a Russian word,
Holy Russia is hated;
I hate them I swear
I swear on honor and Chernov!
...
Rejoice: you are chosen by the Russian god
To all of us in a sacred pattern!
You have been given a righteous crown!
You will be our pledge of honor!

In general, having a quick temper, sharply reacting to any injustice, Küchelbecker could not help but appear on Senate Square on December 14, 1825, and not among accidental witnesses, but as an active participant - although he was officially accepted by the same Ryleev as a member of the secret Northern society shortly before the uprising. It is noteworthy that his brother, Mikhail Küchelbecker, a naval officer, was a member of a secret society for a long time, but no one dedicated Wilhelm, knowing his indiscretion. And not in vain: having already fallen into the whirlwind of events, he, succumbing to general excitement, tried to shoot three times - first at Grand Duke Mikhail, then at General Voinov, and all three times - a misfire! A case so characteristic of the clumsy Kühli, perceived by everyone as an insulting failure, but saved the life of not only the objects of the assassination, but also himself - after all, in this way he did not become a murderer ...

Subsequently, Kuchelbecker, sentenced to fifteen years of solitary confinement and life exile in Siberia, called everything that happened to him and his, as he wrote, ill-fated comrades, “misfortune”: the bitterness of loss and disappointment replaced enthusiasm ...

Do I see you from the window
My joyless dungeon
Golden, clear moon,
The creation of God's right hand?

Accept my mournful greetings,
Night light of peace!
Your quiet light rejoices me:
You lit up my whole soul.

So! maybe not only me
The sufferer, the prisoner in the darkness of the night,
Perhaps my friends
Eyes are now lifted to you!

Perhaps they will remember me;
Fall asleep; with prayer, with love
My ghost in their happy dream
Will fly to the native headboard,

Bless them... But when
On the vault of the sky will blaze
predawn star,
My image, like steam, will melt.

This poem "Moon" was written by Wilhelm Küchelbecker in 1828 in solitary confinement. On the one hand, fate in the person of Tsar Nicholas I doomed him to mental and physical suffering in isolation, but at the same time freed him from the need to take care of household arrangements, earnings, position in society - in general, from everything that Wilhelm did so badly in Everyday life. At the same time - albeit not immediately - he was allowed to keep a diary, correspond with relatives, read - selectively, old files, but it was while sitting in a cell that Küchelbecker improved as a writer, literary critic, philosopher, returned to studying Greek and began to study English on his own: “Providence educates me and by circumstances forces me to do things that I probably would not have thought about due to natural laziness: in Shlisselburg I learned English, because I had no books other than English”, - made on February 15, 1835 an entry in the diary of Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker. It would not be an exaggeration to say that these years of loneliness were the most fruitful in his creative biography.

He worked on a poem in the Russian style "Yuri and Xenia", wrote prose, established contact with friends Delvig and Pushkin, who not only supplied him new literature, but also tried to do everything possible so that Küchelbecker's works were published - even without his name. So, just before his death, Delvig managed to send his only collection of poems to his comrade through his elder sister Kuchelbeker, and on May 12, 1835, for example, Wilhelm Karlovich made the following entry in his diary: “God sent me great joy: my Izhora was sent to me printed ... I consider it unnecessary to mention here to whom, on this occasion, I especially consider myself obliged to be grateful: it would be somehow inappropriate to mention him here; only - God is my witness - that I feel his good deeds. This is about Pushkin. Wilhelm always remembered him, studied with him, analyzing his works, and always knew that he could turn to a lyceum friend not only mentally, but also with real problems:

Whose features are drawn most sharply
Before my eyes? Like thunderbolts
Siberian thunderstorms, his golden strings
They roar... Pushkin, Pushkin! it's you!
Your image is my light in the sea of ​​darkness;
Your living, prophetic dreams
I was not forgotten in that year,
As you drank, solitary, steep, -

This is a fragment of a poem by Kuchelbecker for the lyceum anniversary of October 19, 1836: he, like Pushkin, always celebrated this date. And, by the way, that year he noted her no longer in the cell: quite unexpectedly for Küchelbecker, the fifteen-year sentence was reduced to ten years, and he went to Siberia, hoping to live quietly next to his brother in the town of Barguzin, earning his living by literary work. How far Wilhelm Karlovich was from reality - and immediately felt it: Mikhail was already married, and it became clear that Wilhelm should live on his own.

What a life lesson and test it was for him: three years after his release from prison, he wrote: “If I were Jean-Jacques, i.e. selfish, I would ask the government to lock me up again, but I can no longer do this, ... because I have duties, so I can only pray to God for imprisonment. “They won’t understand my suffering,” Wilhelm Karlovich wrote in despair in a poem at the beginning of 1839, reflecting on his entire past and present life:

I was fascinated
Once a seductive dream;
I thought: the fight with fate will end,
And with her all earthly trials;
Will not be broken, the fighter will stand,
Dies, but does not lose his reward
And finally tear out his crown
From the hands of harsh - poor I'm blind!
Fate takes me from the walls of my dungeon
Pushes into the world (because I regretted it) -
And my world has disappeared like a lightning bolt,
And to be zero from now on is my lot!

In 1839, Kuchelbecker married a simple twenty-year-old girl, half his age, new worries and responsibilities, hopes and losses appeared. Of the four children, only two survived, in search best place the family of Wilhelm Karlovich wandered around Siberia, sometimes he gave lessons, but basically he had to live by subsistence farming, build houses, sow bread, tend a garden - in a word, all those things for which Küchelbecker was in no way adapted, and he was in poor health . Accordingly, all this took away both strength and time from the main, as he believed, his vocation - literary creativity.

But, in spite of everything, he continued to write - sometimes with long breaks caused by deprivation and illness, but still - remained true to himself. He taught his son to read and write, kept a diary, hoping that his life and creative experience would be useful to his son. Wilhelm Karlovich Kuchelbecker died on August 11 (according to the old style), 1846 in Tobolsk. His daughter, Justine, was then two years old, but it was she who kept the father's archive, which we spoke about at the beginning of our acquaintance with Wilhelm Küchelbecker.

Here, thank God, I am calm again:
The heavy melancholy left me;
I became available again for good,
And I again became worthy to believe and love.
Willingly stretch out my hand to the enemy,
I will say willingly: we will live as friends,
My good Basargin, and with you I can
Now to talk in verses ...
Like an angel of God, dear friend,
You suddenly appeared before me
With cordial, sincere participation;
I was exhausted by everyday bad weather:
The disgraced and sick blind man,
Deceived by people, torn to pieces by suffering...
But here again I am warmed by quiet hope, -
And this owes you a hard-working singer!
Oh God hear my prayers
May the battles be not difficult for you
With the insidious world and with oneself;
May you keep peace in the midst of the storms of the soul;
Do not be separated from life-giving love,
With holy Faith, with unearthly Hope, -
And do not meet with feigned love,
Not with vain hope-dream,
Not with dead, arrogant and cold faith,
like that barren fig tree,
Which the Savior cursed dry ...
They are sometimes difficult to distinguish
From the wondrous daughters of Sophia ... Redeemer
And here our only friend-leader,
And he speaks clearly to us:
"Know them by their deeds."
April 13, 1846, Tobolsk...

This concludes a short story about the poet, thinker, Pushkin's lyceum comrade, the Decembrist Wilhelm Karlovich Kuchelbecker. There was almost no mention of the literary features of his work, since first of all I wanted to talk about his life, full of hopes and disappointments, and most importantly, about the creative understanding of his own experience by a man strong and weak at the same time. With what spiritual baggage he came to the end of his earthly existence, only his own essence knows, but I really want to believe that the mistakes and victories, the labors and sufferings of Wilhelm Karlovich Kuchelbecker were not in vain, and he found "peace amidst the storms of the soul" .. .

Victoria FROLOV

Kuchelbecker Wilhelm Karlovich

Among the Decembrists who were serving a settlement in Kurgan, Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker lived here least of all. Lyceum student, friend of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, poet, playwright, participant in the uprising on December 14, 1825. German by birth, Russian by heart.

K.I. Kuchelbecker. Drawing by Wilhelm Küchelbecker from the Lyceum Notebook of 1816–1817

His father, a Saxon nobleman, State Councilor Karl-Heinrich von Küchelbecker, studied law at the University of Leipzig at the same time as Goethe and Radishchev, knew agronomy, mining, and wrote poetry in his youth. He moved to Russia in 1772. Managed in St. Petersburg Stone Island, which belonged to Vel. Prince, later Emperor Paul 1st, was the director and organizer of his estate Pavlovsk. Mother - Justina Yakovlevna, nee von Lomen, came from the service Baltic nobility. Her cousin She was married to Prince Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly. While Emperor Paul was alive, the Kuchelbekers lived in St. Petersburg, after his death - in Estonia, on the estate of Avinorm, donated by the emperor for his labors to his faithful steward. The couple had four children: sons Michael and Wilhelm, daughters Justina and Julia. Yustina Karlovna was married to Grigory Andreevich Glinka, a writer and translator who occupied the Department of Russian Language and Russian Literature at Dorpat University. Julia Karlovna served as a class lady at the Catherine's Institute for Noble Maidens, later as a governess in the house of Princess V.S. Dolgorukova, then as a lecturer in rich houses. Mikhail Karlovich, a naval officer, took part in the expedition of one of the Lazarev brothers to Novaya Zemlya. A member of the Northern Society, as part of the Guards crew, he took part in the uprising on Senate Square, was sentenced to 8 years of hard labor, his civil execution took place on July 13, 1826. on the flagship "Vladimir". The term of hard labor was reduced to 5 years, the settlement served in Barguzin.

Wilhelm Karlovich was born on June 10, 1797. Petersburg, spent his childhood in Avinorm. In a German family, I did not know a single word of German until the age of 6. In 1835 he wrote to his nephew Nikolai Glinka: “My natural language is Russian, my first mentors in Russian literature were my nurse Marina, and my nannies Kornilovna and Tatyana.” He began to study at a private boarding school in the town of Verro, not far from Avinorm. In 1811, under the patronage of Barclay de Tolly, he was appointed to the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, from which he graduated with a silver medal. While still a lyceum student, he attended meetings of the Holy Artel, although he was not a member. Later, in 1816. the members of the artel founded the "Society of True and Faithful Sons of the Fatherland" or the "Union of Salvation".

After graduating from the Lyceum, from 1817 to 1820, Küchelbecker served in the Main Archive of the Foreign Collegium and lectured on Russian literature at the Noble Boarding School at the Main Pedagogical Institute. One of the graduates of this boarding school (Markevich Nikolai Andreevich) recalled: “Küchelbeker was very loved and respected by all the pupils ... He was a long, thin, weak-chested man; while speaking, choked, while lecturing, he drank sugar water. There was a lot of thought and feeling in his poems, but also a lot of cloying. August 9, 1820 Wilhelm was forced to submit his resignation, which he received. At this time, Chief Chamberlain Alexander Lvovich Naryshkin was going to go abroad, and he needed a secretary who could correspond in three languages. His choice fell on Anton Delvig, but he refused and recommended Kuchelbecker. September 8, 1820 Wilhelm left for Europe. In Germany, he met Goethe, a classmate of his father, who gave him his autographed works, met the head of the German romantics Ludwig Tieck, Tiedge, Benjamin Constant and other writers and public figures. Having visited Germany and southern France, Naryshkin and Kuchelbecker in March 1821. arrived in Paris. He lectured in France on modern Russian literature, but his thoughts seemed too progressive, and Wilhelm was sent to Russia.

There are several testimonies about his lectures. So Engelgard wrote on June 25 of the same year to Matyushkin: “The extravagant Kuchelbecker, having arrived in Paris, decided to start public lectures on Russian literature ..., they listened to him with contented participation, but the devil pulled him into politics and liberal ideas, on which he went crazy. He screwed up nonsense, so that Naryshkin drove him away from himself and our envoy ... expelled him from Paris ... ". In August 1821 in St. Petersburg, Wilhelm writes in the album of Pyotr Yakovlev, the brother of his lyceum friend, a few lines about himself: “Küchelbecker is a strange task for himself - stupid and smart; gullible and suspicious; in many ways too young, in others too old; lazy and diligent. His main vice is pride: he is extremely fond of talking, thinking and writing about himself; that is why all his plays are rather monotonous. He sincerely loves his friends, but upsets them at every turn. He has changed in many ways and will change, but in some things he will always remain the same. His desire is that his friends say about him: he is an eccentric, but we are happy to be with him; we condemn him for many things, but we will not cease to be attached to him.

Returning to Russia, Kuchelbecker could not find a job for himself and, on the advice and petition of his St. Petersburg friends, went to the Caucasus under the wing of Alexei Petrovich Yermolov. From December 1821 to May 1822 he lived in Tiflis, where he met Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov almost daily. In his diary, Kuchelbecker wrote: “Griboedov wrote Woe from Wit almost in front of me, at least he read each individual phenomenon to me first immediately after it was written.” The service in the Caucasus was not successful, and Wilhelm lived for some time with his elder sister Yustina Karlovna in the Zakup estate, but on July 30, 1823. moved to Moscow in search of work. Here, rare private lessons supported his financial situation. Küchelbecker takes an active part in literary life. Published in the magazines "Good-meaning" and "Son of the Fatherland", together with Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky publishes the almanac magazine "Mnemosyne", where he acts as a poet, essayist and critic.

He closely follows the work of Pushkin, whom he adored. In October 1824 Pushkin finished the poem "Gypsies", which immediately sold widely on the lists. Kondraty Ryleev writes to him in Mikhailovskoye: “On Saturday I was at Pletnev with Kuchelbeker and your brother ... The Gypsies were read. You can imagine what happened to Küchelbecker. How he loves you! How young and fresh he is! But in 1819. they dueled. Called Kuchelbecker, infuriated by Pushkin's rather innocent epigram. They appeared on the Volkovo field and decided to shoot themselves in some unfinished family crypt. Kuchelbecker's second was Anton Delvig. When Kuchelbecker began to aim, Pushkin shouted: “Delvig! Stand in my place, it's safer here." Kuchelbecker went berserk, his hand trembled, he made half a turn and pierced the cap on Delvig's head. Pushkin threw down his pistol and wanted to hug Wilhelm, but he demanded a return shot from Pushkin and was forced to convince him that it was impossible to shoot, because snow had accumulated in the barrel.

Kuchelbecker was admitted to the Northern Society in November 1825. His activity during the uprising on the Senate Square was the ebullient and enthusiastic activity of a romantic revolutionary, ready for a feat in the name of Freedom. He was armed with a broadsword and a pistol, went to the Marine crew, where his brother Mikhail served, to the barracks of the Moscow regiment with the news of the start of operations. He was looking for a deputy to the leader of the uprising who did not appear, tried to shoot at Vel. Book. Mikhail Pavlovich and General Voinov. Finally, he tried to gather the soldiers scattered by the canister fire and lead them to the attack. By evening, when it was all over, Kuchelbecker came to his apartment on Pochtamtskaya Street, very close to Senate Square, and ordered his faithful servant Semyon Balashov to pack up quickly in order to get out of the city before the arrests. On the same evening, they went on foot beyond the St. Petersburg outpost, and then, either on horseback or on foot, reached the village of Gorki, the estate of a distant relative of P.S. Lavrov. The fugitives lived here for 5 or 6 days, after which, on the troika given by Lavrov, they went through Velikiye Luki to the village of another relative, and from there they reached Zakup, the estate of Justina Karlovna Glinka. They stopped not in the estate itself, but in the neighboring village of Zagusino. Here Kuchelbecker learned that the police had already visited Zakup, and a thorough search was carried out. In the two weeks that Kuchelbecker reached Zakup, his trail was lost.

From the mother, who lived in the Glinka family, the arrival of Wilhelm was hidden. Yustina Karlovna dressed her brother in a peasant shirt, a sheepskin coat, bast shoes and a hat, gave him a false "view" in the name of the carpenter Ivan Podmasternikov, and Semyon Balashov - a "view" in the name of a retired soldier Matvey Zakrevsky for a meeting with relatives in the Minsk and Mogilev provinces, provided money and sent on a cart with a pair of horses, accompanied by a faithful courtyard man Grigory Denisov. Küchelbecker wanted to flee abroad. On January 3, 1826, having stopped in a tavern somewhere beyond Orsha, he released Grigory back to Zakup and sent a letter with him to his sister, in which he said goodbye to her and asked to give Grigory Denisov his freedom. Having reached the border region on January 14, Kuchelbecker also parted ways with Semyon Balashov, because locals asked for up to two thousand rubles for crossing the border, and he had only 200 rubles. Wilhelm decided to go alone and get to Warsaw, where his relative, maternal cousin, General A.I. Albrecht, lyceum comrade S.S. Esakov and a longtime friend of the family, Baron Marenheim, served. He wanted to get from them the money needed to cross the border.

On January 18, in the town of Slonim, Semyon Balashov was detained, who was making his way to Zakup with a cart and two horses. A fake passport did not help him, because. the 50-year-old age of the retired soldier indicated in it did not correspond to the appearance of the 22-year-old Balashov. He was imprisoned in Grodno, then transferred to Warsaw, where he was interrogated, and on January 24 he was taken in shackles to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where his master was already there. Kuchelbecker was detained in Warsaw on January 19 by non-commissioned officer Grigoriev, who identified him by signs. For this capture, by order of Baron Dibich, Grigoriev was promoted to ensign. Kuchelbeker was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress. At one of the interrogations, Kuchelbecker made a vivid speech in defense of the Russian people. “... Looking at the brilliant qualities that God bestowed on the Russian people, the first people in the world in terms of their glory and power, in their sonorous, rich, powerful language, which has no equal in Europe, in front of all that is characteristic, I grieve with my soul that all this is suppressed, all this withers and, perhaps, falls, without bearing any fruit in moral world! May God forgive me for sorrow this part of my transgressions, and the merciful Tsar part of the delusions into which blind, perhaps short-sighted, but unfeigned love for the Fatherland led me. By the verdict of the Supreme Criminal Court, Küchelbecker was assigned to the 1st category - to the death penalty, but by the Highest Confirmation on July 10, 1826. sentenced "on deprivation of ranks and nobility to exile in hard labor for 20 years."

Küchelbecker was particularly blamed for the attempt on the life of Vel. Book. Mikhail Pavlovich, who inherited from his father the role of the official patron of the Küchelbecker family. Mikhail Pavlovich continued to play this role even after the two Küchelbeker brothers fell into a “state crime”. At the request of his relatives, he interceded for the mitigation of the fate of Wilhelm, demonstrating the Christian "forgetfulness of evil." Perhaps a certain role was played by Grigory Andreevich Glinka, who since 1811. was the tutor of the Grand Dukes Nikolai and Mikhail, in 1813. taught Russian to Empress Elizabeth and Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna. July 25, 1826 Kuchelbecker was taken out of the Peter and Paul Fortress and taken to Shlisselburg. With a general review by Nicholas I of the sentences to the Decembrists, the sentence was reduced from 20 years to 15 years. However, the fate of Küchelbecker was not yet decided by this. Unlike his comrades, he was not sent to the Siberian mines. At the request of Vel. Book. Michael's penal servitude was replaced by solitary confinement in the fortress.

October 12, 1827 Kuchelbecker was sent to the prison companies at the Dinaburg fortress. When he was being transported under escort, on October 14, at the deaf postal station Zalazi, near Borovichi, there was a chance meeting with his beloved friend Pushkin, who was traveling from Mikhailovsky to St. Petersburg. They had not seen each other since May 6, 1820, when Pushkin was sent to the south. The next day, Pushkin wrote down for himself: “... Suddenly four troikas with a courier drove up. “Probably Poles?” I said to the owner. “Yes,” she answered, “they are now being taken back.” I went out to look at them. One of the prisoners was standing leaning against a column. A tall, pale, and thin young man with a black beard, in a frieze overcoat, approached him... Seeing me, he looked at me with liveliness. I involuntarily turned to him. We stare at each other, and I recognize Küchelbecker. We threw ourselves into each other's arms. The gendarmes pulled us apart. The courier took my hand with threats and curses - I did not hear him. Kuchelbecker became ill. The gendarmes gave him water, put him in a cart and rode away.

On October 28, the courier reported to the duty general of the General Staff A.N. Potapov about this meeting: “... Someone Mr. Pushkin ... suddenly rushed to the criminal Kuchelbecker and began talking to him after kissing.” After they were taken away, Pushkin wanted to transfer the money to Küchelbecker, but the courier did not allow this. “Then he, Mr. Pushkin, shouted and, threatening me, said that upon arrival in St. Petersburg, at that very moment I would report to His Imperial Majesty, both for not allowing me to say goodbye to my friend, and to give him money for the journey; moreover, I will not fail to say the same to Adjutant General Benckendorff. Mr. Pushkin himself, between threats, announced to me that he had been imprisoned in the fortress and then released, which is why I even more prevented him from having intercourse with the prisoner; and the criminal Kuchelbecker told me: this is the Pushkin who composes.

Kuchelbecker himself on July 10, 1828. in a general letter to Pushkin and Griboedov he wrote: "I will never forget my meeting with you, Pushkin." And two years later, on October 20, 1830, in a letter to Pushkin, he again recalls this extraordinary meeting: “Do you remember our date in an extremely romantic way: my beard? A frieze overcoat? Bear hat? How could you, after seven and a half years, recognize me in such a suit? Is that what I don't get?" Letters to Pushkin were sent secretly, through faithful people. If in the Peter and Paul Fortress Küchelbecker had only the Holy Scriptures, in Shlisselburg he received some books and even learned to read English on his own, then in Dinaburg at first he was not given any books, no pen, no ink. But gradually he had some opportunities.

The divisional commander, Major General Yegor Krishtofovich, whose relatives were neighbors of Justina Karlovna Glinka, served in the Dinaburg fortress. Their estate was located in the Smolensk province near Zakup, and when Küchelbecker in 1822. spent the summer with his sister, he became friends with this family. At the request of Smolensk relatives, the general procured permission to read and write for Kuchelbecker, delivered books to him, obtained permission to walk along the parade ground, and even arranged a meeting with his mother in his apartment. It was more difficult to obtain permission for correspondence, and when it was allowed, there were many restrictions - writing only to close relatives, touching only on family matters and abstract topics. This permission was a great joy for Wilhelm. In the aforementioned general letter to Pushkin and Griboedov, he wrote: “I am healthy and, thanks to the gift of my mother - nature, frivolity, I am not unhappy. I live day by day, I write. I am sending you some trifles composed by me in Shlisselburg. In Dinaburg, Küchelbecker makes a translation of Shakespeare's Macbeth and sends it to Delvig. Then he translates "Richard II". In a letter to Justina Karlovna, he reports: “In five weeks I finished Richard II; I don't remember ever having worked with such ease; moreover, this is the first big undertaking that I have completely finished; so it removes in some way from me the reproach that I do not know how to finish what I started. Later, Wilhelm Karlovich translated Henry the Fourth, Richard the Third, and the first act of The Merchant of Venice. Simultaneously with the translation of Shakespeare, he wrote the poem "David", which he completed on December 13, 1829.

From the Dinaburg fortress, Küchelbecker manages to maintain secret correspondence with friends. In this he is helped not only by Krishtofovich, but also by the Poles - officers of the fortress garrison. One of them, A. Rypinsky, left enthusiastic memories of Kuchelbecker. This man of great soul was true son of his new homeland, which he loved more than life, just like Ryleev, Bestuzhev and Pestel themselves. As a clear moon shines among countless dim stars, so his noble, pale, emaciated face with expressive features stood out with a radiance of spiritual beauty among a huge crowd of criminals, dressed, like him, in a gray “uniform” of outcasts. A strong and hardened heart must have been beating in his chest, if his lips ... had never uttered a word of complaint to anyone about such a harsh lot. He was silent - silent and waited for the end of his suffering ... Whoever knew him closer loved, appreciated, admired and revered him, and whoever spent at least a few evening hours with him could not help but discover in him a rare mind, a crystal-clear soul and deep education. Even on the face of a soldier who stood guard at his door for at least a few minutes, an expression of admiration and respect appeared every time an unexpected light radiating from the face of this extraordinary prisoner hit him in the eyes - for whoever would not be touched by this exciting image of an innocently tormented heavenly virtues, this is a reissue of the torments of Christ.

In the spring of 1831 in connection with the Polish uprising, it was decided to transport Küchelbecker to Revel. At that time he fell ill and lay in the fortress hospital. Despite his ill condition, on April 15 he was taken out of Dinaburg and taken through Riga to Revel, where he was imprisoned in the Vyshgorod Castle. There he was deprived of all the privileges that he enjoyed in Dinaburg. Kuchelbecker insisted on being kept in a separate cell, on release from work, on a particular dress, on the right to read, write and correspond with relatives, and also to feed on his own money, referring to the fact that all this was allowed to him in Dinaburg. The Revel authorities requested the highest authorities in St. Petersburg, where, in turn, they fussed and began to find out on what basis the prisoner regime was softened for Küchelbecker in Dinaburg. It turned out that this was done with the permission of the king and June 8, 1831. from the General Staff informed General Opperman, who was in charge of all the Russian fortresses, that Nicholas I ordered Kuchelbeker to “keep as in Dinaburg” in the new place.

Meanwhile, on April 25, 1831. the emperor ordered to transfer Küchelbeker to the Sveaborg fortress (in Finland). The case dragged on, tk. it was ordered to transport it by sea, on a passing ship. Only on October 7, he was taken out on the ship "Juno" and on October 14 delivered to Sveaborg, where he was kept until December 14, 1835. Here Küchelbecker had the right to correspond with relatives, at the end of 1831. even received permission to correspond with his brother Michael. He received his first letter from his brother on December 8, 1831. June 15, 1832 he wrote in his diary: “Today I must consider one of the happiest days of my life. I received six letters from my relatives and ... a response from my brother to a letter that I wrote to him last year in December. After receiving the first letter from him, I still doubted whether a real correspondence would be allowed between us; Now I see that I can enjoy this boon.”

But in Sveaborg, Küchelbecker lost even those limited opportunities for communication with free people that he had in Dinaburg. Only meetings with the pastor were allowed, who supplied him with the writings of German preachers. Perhaps under the influence of these soul-saving conversations, Kuchelbecker decided to repent. April 15, 1832 the commandant of the Sveaborg fortress in a report to Benkendorf writes: “The state criminal Küchelbecker ... now, before the execution of confession and Holy Communion according to the rite of the Lutheran religion, wants to calm his conscience at the expense of the accused by him in 1826. the criminal Iv. Pushchin seems to be innocent. The fact is that during the investigation he stated that Pushchin encouraged him to shoot at Vel. Book. Michael. At the confrontation, Pushchin denied this grave accusation; This was the only case in the testimony of Kuchelbecker, when with his own words he significantly aggravated the guilt of another and repeatedly and persistently persisted in them, calling even God to witness. Already during the investigation, Kuchelbecker had doubts about his rightness, he tried to soften his first testimony with new formulations, and he succeeded: this clause is absent in the charge against Pushchin. In the fortress, he wanted to repent once more. In Sveaborg, Küchelbecker completely immersed himself in creativity. One after another, he creates monumental epic and dramatic works: the dramatic fairy tale "Ivan, the merchant's son", the poem "Agasfer", translates Shakespeare's "King Lear" and "The Merchant of Venice", writes a poem based on the plot from the ancient Russian story "Yuri and Xenia" , the poem "Orphan", with an extraordinary enthusiasm, he is working on one of his most significant works - the folk-historical tragedy "Prokofy Lyapunov".

At the end of 1835 Kuchelbeker was released from the fortress ahead of schedule and, at the request of his relatives, was “turned to a settlement” in Barguzin, where his brother Mikhail had lived for several years. December 14, 1835 he was taken out of Sveaborg, January 20, 1836. he was taken to Barguzin. The meeting with my brother was touching. Mikhail was sentenced to 8 years of hard labor, which was reduced to 5 years and in 1831. he was sent to settle in Barguzin. Here he first began to cultivate the land. He even had sheep on his farm. On the initiative of Mikhail Karlovich, a Russian parish school was organized in Barguzin, and a Buryat school in the nearby village of Ulyuk, in both schools Mikhail taught children and adults to read and write. In his house, he organized an outpatient clinic, made medicines from herbs, was one of the first to recognize the healing properties of arsenic, and even treated gangrene. He married in Barguzin on June 3, 1834. on a very beautiful woman, Anna Stepanovna Tokareva, and they lived together. Before her marriage, Anna Stepanovna served with a local rich man and had to give birth from him. She wanted to lay hands on herself, but Mikhail Karlovich persuaded her to live, baptized her child, became a godfather. The child died, and Küchelbecker decided to marry her, but since the godfather, the church forbade it. They tried for a long time, but permission to marry was nevertheless received. Mikhail himself was born in Barguzin illegitimate daughter, who was brought up in the Trubetskoy family, and had six legitimate daughters who received a good upbringing at the Irkutsk Girls' Institute.

The release from the fortress instilled in Wilhelm Karlovich new hopes for the opportunity to return to a wide literary activity and publish at least under a pseudonym. On February 13, he writes to Pushkin: "My imprisonment is over, I am free, I go without a nanny and I do not sleep under lock and key." But soon the tone and content of the letters change dramatically. Persistent requests to apply for permission to be published, with which Kuchelbecker throws relatives and Pushkin, lead to nothing. Literature could become his only source of material well-being. For 10 years of sitting in the fortresses, he was physically exhausted, although before that he did not differ in heroic build, weakened and was unsuitable for the hard work that his brother fed. Mikhail Karlovich was a man of practical folds. All the money received from relatives, and those that he himself managed to earn, he invested in his household. In addition to the allotment allotted to him, he cleared and cultivated 11 acres of land with his own hands, built a hut with services, started 13 heads of cattle, and was engaged in fishing. Wilhelm tried to help his brother, dragged logs from the forest, worked in the field, but he did not have enough strength. Anna Stepanovna began to express dissatisfaction with his presence, and Wilhelm Karlovich, weighed down by worries, drawn into petty squabbles, begins to regret his fortress cell. August 3, 1836 he writes to Pushkin: “You want me to tell you about myself… Such a huge change has taken place in my fate that even today my soul has not settled down. I breathe clean fresh air, I go where I want, I see no guns, no convoy, I hear neither the creak of locks, nor the whisper of sentries during the change: all this is beautiful, but in the meantime - would you believe it? - sometimes I regret my solitude. There I was closer to faith, to poetry, to the ideal; here everything is not as even I expected, but I seem to be rather disappointed about people and what can be demanded of them. Kuchelbecker continues this theme in verse. He writes that “a lifeless thread of sluggish days stretched out and - pale worries

And dirty work, and the cry of deaf need,

And the squeal of children, and the clatter of stupid work

shouted over the song of the golden dream.

Küchelbecker was sure that they would talk about him here:

He did not understand anything

And he was weak and timid like children,

Strangers for him

Animals and fish were caught in nets.

……………………………..

And he to the worries of a poor life

I could never get used to it.

In the autumn of 1836 Wilhelm came to the conclusion that he needed to improve his personal life. At one time he had a bride - Avdotya Timofeevna Pushkina (according to some evidence - a relative of A.S. Pushkin). They met in 1822, the wedding was postponed several times due to the insecurity and disorder of Küchelbecker. Then the uprising and the fortress. In 1832 he asked relatives about the bride, said hello to her and returned her freedom. Nevertheless, in Siberia, he again had the hope of the possibility of marriage with Avdotya. There is a family tradition that Kuchelbecker retained a feeling of deep love for the bride and called her to Siberia, but she, who also loved him very much, did not dare to share the fate of the settler due to her weakness of character. When the hope of marriage with Avdotya finally collapsed, Wilhelm began to look for a bride in Barguzin. October 9, 1836 he informed his mother that he intended to marry the daughter of the local postmaster, Drosida Ivanovna Artenova. She was born in 1817, when Wilhelm graduated from the Lyceum.

During the period of grooming, Küchelbecker, with his characteristic ability to get carried away, idealized his bride, poetically drawing her appearance in letters to relatives and friends. He writes to Pushkin: “Great news! I'm going to marry ... For you, Poet, at least one thing is important, that she is very good in her own way: black eyes burn the soul; in the face there is something infantile and at the same time something passionate, about which you Europeans hardly have an idea. The wedding required expenses and in a letter to younger sister To Yulia, he not only describes the beauty of the bride, but talks about his financial situation “... for her I take, of course, zero. The wedding, no matter how tight, everything will cost me about 100 rubles; I owed 50 rubles before, and the house I bought cost me 450 rubles unfinished; completion will cost 300 rubles according to the brother's estimate; So, my friend, in every way I need 1000 rubles in the first half of the year. Do me a favor, lend them to me, and moreover, not in particles, but at once.

The wedding took place on January 15, 1837. The young wife did not know how to read and write, and Kuchelbecker enthusiastically took up her upbringing and training, but, apparently, he did not manage to attach her to his spiritual interests. He addressed his young son in his diary: "... learn from my example, never marry a girl, no matter how much you love her, who will not be able to understand you." The postmaster, passing off his daughter as a nobleman, assumed that she would be financially secure. Küchelbecker had nothing; he lived on money sent by his sisters. The marriage forced him to ask with even greater insistence for permission to "feed on his craft." He writes to Benckendorff: “I have applied for permission to marry the girl I love. I will have to support my wife, but the question follows: how? A bullet wound in the left shoulder and a lack of bodily strength will be my constant obstacle to earning food by arable farming or some kind of needlework ... (Please) ask the Emperor for permission to eat literary works without putting my name on them. He turned to Zhukovsky for help, but the royal permission was not followed.

In one of the letters of 1837. Wilhelm Karlovich writes: “I vegetate, but do not live. Today we have not had a red year. Everything fails and grief is everywhere. Only my good wife consoles me, but at the thought of her, care sucks my heart ... I am ashamed in the world: I have no urine, how long I live, it’s hardly possible to live to the good. In another letter, he admits that if he were an egoist, he would ask the government to lock him up in the fortress again. Due to continuous droughts in Barguzin, there were crop failures for three years in a row. Winter 1837-1838 was very difficult, and the next - even harder: there was no bread, no hay, the loss of livestock began. Küchelbecker did not have the means to complete the construction of the house, and they lived in some kind of closet. June 12, 1838 Droshida Ivanovna gave birth to a dead boy, they buried him on the 14th, and when he was taken out, they gave him the name Fedor. July 28, 1839 a boy was born again, Misha. Additional expenses were required.

In the fall, Kuchelbeker receives an invitation from the head of the Aksha border fortress, Major A.I. Razgildeev, who needed a good teacher for his daughters. He accepts the invitation and writes to his niece Natalia Grigorievna Glinka: “Whether I will feel better in Aksha, I don’t know. But there is no way I can stay here. Everything is so expensive here that in these years my income is not enough even for one bread ... The climate here is the most severe, now for the third week, frosts over 30 degrees have been non-stop, and my health is worse from year to year. At the end of January 1840 Kuchelbecker and his family came to Aksha, a small fortress on the Chinese border. The Razgildeevs greeted him cordially, a local Cossack ataman also invited him to be a teacher to his son. February 6, 1840 Wilhelm writes to his beloved niece Natalya: “My heart has now blossomed; four years I lived among rough, uncouth, dissolute savages; here is something similar ... to your priceless family to me.

In Aksha, on December 21, Küchelbeker's son Ivan was born, about whom he wrote to Obolensky: “His name is Ivan. This name was given to him by his grandfather's mother, but I am very pleased with him, because he reminds me of the Lyceum and a friend (Pushchina - A.V.), whom both you and I love. The boy died on March 27, 1842. A year later, the daughter of Justina was born, on the night of March 6-7, 1843. Her godmother in absentia was Natalia G. Glinka. In Aksha, Wilhelm Karlovich returns to creativity, writes the final part of Izhora, ponders the plan of the tragedy about Dmitry the Pretender. Here there are meetings with visiting people, with whom he quickly converges. During his imprisonment, he did not lose his sociability and greedy interest in people. He maintains contact with the Bestuzhev brothers, who live in Selenginsk, relatively close to Aksha. His former cheerfulness returns to him, there is even an entry in his diary that at the party he danced quadrilles, mazurkas, waltzes without rest. This fun can be explained by the fact that Kuchelbeker falls in love with his young student Annushka Razgildeeva, who was then 15 years old. In letters to his relatives, he calls her the only consolation and his guardian angel. The young girl was flattered by his attention, but her mother was also carried away by the poet and turned her daughter against him. These intrigues did not pass by the attention of Major Razgildeev, he urgently transferred to Kyakhta and in 1842. his family left Aksha.

Küchelbecker took the end of his platonic romance very hard. He wrote in his diary: “God is with you, Anna Alexandrovna! you were mine last love and how it all ended stupidly and disgustingly! And I loved you with all the madness of the last passion, in your face I loved more people. Wilhelm Karlovich began to ask his superiors to transfer him either to Urik or to Irkutsk, but was refused; then in March 1843. he asks to go to Kyakhta or Turinsk and is again refused. The new commandant of Akshi began to harass Kuchelbeker and interfere with his correspondence. And yet he did not repent that he had lived these years here, at least he paid off old debts and did not make new ones. In January 1844 with the assistance of the brother-in-law of Yustina's sister Vladimir Andreevich Glinka, Kuchelbecker begins to fuss about being transferred to Western Siberia. Glinka in his youth was a member of the Union of Welfare, then he made a successful military-administrative career. In 1831 during the Polish campaign, he was already in the rank of major general and served as chief of staff of artillery in the army. Subsequently, he was the chief head of mining plants in the Urals. He provided Kuchelbecker with significant support during the years of serfdom and during the years of exile, sending him money and books. Kuchelbecker called him the best friend tested in happiness and misfortune. In March, Yustina Karlovna announced that he was allowed to apply to the Kurgan district, and on August 27 a paper with permission to leave arrived in Aksha.

September 2, 1844 Kuchelbecker leaves for Barguzin to see his brother for the last time. Having reached Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude), the district center of Eastern Transbaikalia, he hoped to receive a form from the district chief - a document that attributed travel expenses to the state account, but the chief did not dare to issue it. He had to take a road trip and pay for the troika to Turka. In Turka, he hired a boat for 100 rubles to sail to Barguzin, but such a storm broke out on Baikal that they were carried under Larch Island for two days, flooded with waves, the rudder was torn off, and they hardly settled on the cat. We arrived in Barguzin around 23 September. It was dangerous to embark on the return journey by sea, and Küchelbecker decided to wait for the freeze-up. They moved to Irkutsk on a winter road through Lake Baikal in January and stayed almost a month. Here Wilhelm Karlovich was cheerful and calm, conversations with comrades sometimes dragged on long after midnight. They met with Volkonsky, Trubetskoy and Drosida Ivanovna was in the company of princesses for the first time. She was especially struck by her manners Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya and Droshida then did not get tired of remembering her. No wonder Kuchelbecker wrote to the princess on February 13, 1845: “My wife, devoted to you with her heart and soul, began a new life after meeting you; I don't recognize her anymore. To you, princess, I will owe my family happiness. Yesterday and the third day she was unwell, which delayed me for several days in Krasnoyarsk.

The most joyful was the meeting with Ivan Pushchin, a lyceum comrade, to whom Kuchelbecker stopped by in Yalutorovsk. Pushchin wrote about this meeting to the former director of the lyceum Engelhardt: “For three days the original Wilhelm stayed with me. He went to live in Kurgan with his Droshida Ivanovna, two noisy children and with a box literary works. I embraced him with the former lyceum feeling. This meeting vividly reminded me of the old days: he is the same original, only with gray hair in his head. He recited me in verse to the utmost… I can’t tell you that his family life convinced of the pleasantness of marriage… I confess to you that I thought more than once, looking at this picture, listening to poetry, the exclamations of the muzhik Dronyushka, as her hubby calls her, and the incessant squeal of children. The choice of a wife proves the taste and dexterity of our eccentric: even in Barguzin one could find something even better for the eyes. Her temper is unusually heavy and there is no sympathy between them.

March 22, 1845 Kuchelbecker arrived in Kurgan. Although he was ordered to settle in the village of Smolina, three versts from the city, he rented an apartment in the city and immediately began to petition for permission to stay in it. The Tobolsk governor could not give such permission by his authority, and on May 2, Kuchelbeker was informed that the governor forbade him to stay in Kurgan. The next day, Wilhelm Karlovich petitioned the chief of the gendarmes and the head of the 3rd department, A.F. Orlov, motivating his desire to stay in Kurgan with poor health and the need for medical assistance. I also wrote to my old friend Vladimir Odoevsky, hoping for his official and secular connections. On the same days, Ivan Semenovich Povalo-Shveikovsky was dying in Kurgan, and Kuchelbecker visited him every other day. He rewrites Shveikovsky's will drawn up by Basargin, is present at his death and participates in the funeral. May 26 was Pushkin's birthday and Kuchelbecker invited friends - Decembrists and exiled Poles. Briggen, Basargin, Bashmakov, Shchepin-Rostovsky and Polish friends came - Mikhail Ivanovich Peiker - clerk of the city government, Valerian Vasilyevich Pasek - head of land surveying, Nikodim Osipovich Tchaikovsky - senior reserve surveyor and others. True, Küchelbecker suspected that the arrival of some was due to the fact that the mayor's wife was in the bathhouse and they did not play cards with him. It was busy and noisy. These people, who always sacredly honored the memory of the brilliant poet, recalled their youth, antiquity, Kuchelbecker spoke about the lyceum years.

In Kurgan, his health begins to deteriorate sharply, Wilhelm Karlovich becomes catastrophically blind. Already on April 5, he writes in his diary: “Again a letter from Pushchin. My correspondence is coming to an end. There is no urine in the eyes, how they hurt. The disease made Kuchelbecker irritable and touchy. He constantly quarreled with the Decembrists. In his diary you can read: “Again a month has passed ... I was sick, I was tormented by the blues ... During the blues, I managed to quarrel with Basargin and did, God knows how many stupid things” or “I got excited again and dealt with Shchepin; Yes, he, really, is better than me - he was the first to stretch out his hand to me, while I told him, God knows what I said.

On his name day on May 28, Kuchelbecker received a watch from Basargin as a gift, a letter and money from his sister Yustina Karlovna. Two weeks later, on June 10, Wilhelm Karlovich writes: “I have passed 48 years today. Sadly I met my birthday. Until the guests came together, I began to nurse verses, but I could not compose more than what follows:

“Another year has been added to me

To the years of dull suffering;

I look at their hard move

Not grumbling, but without hope.

……………………………..

What will happen, I know in advance

There is no deceit in my life,

Brilliant and cheerful was the sunrise,

And the west is full of mist.”

On Kuchelbeker's birthday, June 10, the provincial land surveyor writes a report to the Tobolsk Treasury about his attempt to take away the 15 acres of land laid out by order of the tsar for the state criminal. Wilhelm Karlovich was supposed to be present at the allotment of land, but after learning that most of the allocated land was occupied by the arable land of the peasants of the Smolinskaya volost, he refused the site, but asked to allocate land to him in another place so that half of the acres would be suitable for mowing. He was going to start a farm, not as big as that of his brother Mikhail, but cows and a horse were a must. Meanwhile, the question of Küchelbecker's stay in Kurgan was being decided. With the tacit consent of the authorities, his sister Yustina Karlovna bought a house in the city in the name of Drosida Ivanovna, and Vladimir Andreevich Glinka informs the Manager of the 3rd department, Leonty Vasilyevich Dubelt, about this. There were no sanctions. The house was bought from Maria Feodorovna Kinizhentseva, the wife of a retired centurion. We do not know the amount of the purchase, but Kinizhentseva herself bought this house in 1842. at the Klyachkovskys for 400 rubles in silver, perhaps, and sold for approximately the same amount. Sick Küchelbecker and his family moved into their own house on September 21. Fonvizin on September 8, 1845, when the purchase of a house was being processed, wrote to Kuchelbecker: “I spoke with the governor about the transfer ... of you to the very city of Kurgan. He is ready to make an idea about it, but for this he needs a pretext, i.e. a request from you, in which you would state that, due to your painful condition, you need medical assistance, which you are deprived of in the village. However, the governor said that neither from his side, nor from other authorities, there would be the slightest obstacle for you to live in the city ... I wanted to tell you all this with Mr. Sobolevsky, who delivered your letter to me, but he left the day before ... ". Well, if the Kurgan mayor Anton Sobolevsky carried letters from the Decembrists, then we can assume that he looked through his fingers at Küchelbecker's residence in the city, and not in Smolino. In December, the Tobolsk governor Karl Fedorovich Engelke arrived in Kurgan and Kuchelbecker turned to him for permission to come to Tobolsk for treatment. The governor informs the governor-general about this and directly indicates that Kuchelbecker is stationed in Kurgan.

Having received a permanent shelter, Wilhelm Karlovich calms down somewhat and writes a cycle of lyrical poems, which are the best in his work: “The Fate of Russian Poets”, “Fatigue”, etc. refers to "our Pushkin" who "has been dressed in underground darkness for a long time." The final stanzas are a call, despite the fact that “the path is getting harder and the burden is hurting more and more painfully,” to go forward: “Go, go! You've been hired for a long time: it's not time for you yet! Go, do not get tired, do not think to rest. He constantly has Decembrists, more often than others comes Shchepin-Rostovsky, who lived alone and closed. They became very friendly. Briggen and Basargin came and literary conversations and disputes began. Briggen read his translation of Julius Caesar, which Wilhelm Karlovich highly appreciated. Kuchelbecker read sad poems to his guests, including "Fatigue".

Yes! The cup of life is full of bile;

But I drank this cup to the bottom, -

And here is a drunken, sick head

I bow and bow to the grave rest.

I knew exile, I knew prison,

Recognized the blindness of the dawnless darkness

And the formidable conscience learned reproaches,

And I feel sorry for the slave-sweet homeland.

Since mid-summer, Küchelbecker has felt much worse. Complete blindness approached, tuberculosis progressed. Increasingly, the illness prevented him from concentrating, and the poet could not squeeze a few lines out of himself. Then he became quick-tempered and grumbling or plunged into a religious mood, thought about death. He recalled the friends of his youth, in a message to Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, who repeatedly helped him financially, there are such lines: “But in the depths of my soul there is one wonderful desire: I want to leave a memory for my friends, a pledge that I am the same, that I am worthy of you, friends". October 9 he did last entry in your diary. There was a lot of unfinished business left. Passing through Tobolsk, he took his manuscript from Mikhail Alexandrovich Fonvizin in order to proofread it and correct something. In connection with the troubles, diseases, things moved slowly, and the onset of blindness almost stopped work. However, in a letter sent with Sobolevsky, Küchelbecker reports that the manuscript has been corrected and can be rewritten. To which Fonvizin replies on September 8: “As for the correspondence of the translation, I ask you only to notify me what it will cost, and I will deliver you the money to pay Mr. Richter and the paper that I expect these days from the Nizhny Novgorod fair ... ".

October 28, 1845 Basargin writes to Fonvizin: “... Wilhelm Karlovich, who had been suffering from severe eye pain for another two weeks, instructed me to inform you that the illness stopped his work with your manuscript for some time - he believes that it cannot be rewritten otherwise, as here, under his supervision, and therefore does not dare to send her to you for correspondence. He told me that he had already found a person who undertook to rewrite it, and would do it in the best way possible - it was the teacher Richter, who was doing the same with Alexander Fedorovich ... ". Nikolai Petrovich Richter had an eccentric, impudent character, and they often quarreled with Kuchelbecker. But Richter was constantly needed to write letters, petitions and poems under dictation. He was with Küchelbecker until his departure. January 25, 1846 Wilhelm Karlovich turned to him with verses: “My poor Richter, I offended you! I didn’t offend you, but an illness ... ”The poet sincerely asked for forgiveness. But Richter turned out to be not only an eccentric person, but also vile. May 11, 1846 already in Tobolsk, Kuchelbeker dictated to his son Misha a letter to his niece Natalya Glinka: “... There lived in Kurgan with me under the same roof a young man, comrade N.P.R.; he was like a son to me, and meanwhile he conveyed my every word to a person who did not love me; and when I began to gather from Kurgan, I completed my feat with the words: let him be angry with me along the way, but it’s a pity that I didn’t steal his diaries.

November 23, 1845 Shchepin-Rostovsky writes to Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizina: “Wilhelm Karlovich has been suffering from a severe eye disease for several weeks these days, which has intensified to such an extent that until the twentieth of this month he could not distinguish anything. But on this day I had some sight and could see, although with difficulty, the surrounding objects ... Filled with sacred and poetic enthusiasm, Vasil Karlovich (that was his name in Kurgan - A.V.) composed a prayer in verse, which he instructed to send to you. Friends were concerned about the state of Kuchelbecker. Using all their connections, they are trying to obtain permission for Wilhelm Karlovich to travel to Tobolsk for treatment. He himself solicits the same from the governor of Tobolsk and from the 3rd department. Kuchelbecker, hoping for permission, asks Fonvizin to find him an apartment in Tobolsk. Correspondence goes through Basargin. Here are excerpts from the letters. December 27, 1845 “I told Kuchelbecker what you write about the apartment. He, it seems, disposes to come to Tobolsk alone, and leaves Droshida Ivanovna with the children here. One of his eyes is a little better, but in any case, he certainly needs to go to Tobolsk for treatment - here he will never restore either his vision or his health in general ... Kuchelbecker often needs my medical assistance ... ". January 17, 1846 “Poor Kuchelbecker is somewhat better, he is waiting for permission to go to Tobolsk. Probably, the prince (Pyotr Dm. Gorchakov - A.V.) could not afford it himself and introduced it to St. Petersburg. I have not seen him for six days, but I know that one of his eyes is getting better, while the other sees absolutely nothing. February 26, 1846 - “At the last mail, Kuchelbecker received permission to go to Tobolsk. He will not hesitate to leave here as soon as possible, and as soon as he finishes his preparations. He is traveling with all his family, and therefore he instructed me to most humbly ask you to prepare for him a comfortable, albeit small, apartment. Three rooms will be enough for him, but he only needs to take care that it is warm and not carbon monoxide, and that in his room in particular there can be no through wind. He wants to live on the mountain, and if possible, closer to you ... His health is extremely upset, except for an eye disease; he, poor thing, is all dried up, coughing, and some time ago he was spitting up blood. I suspect that he has consumption and, I confess, I do not hope that he will recover - especially since irritability is a necessary consequence of this disease and his sad situation greatly interferes with treatment. He is in the most miserable position. Now we roll him every day in a cart in order to accustom him to the air a little. The carriage, the cart in which he will go from here, is calm, but still I think that the road will upset him a little more. On February 28, Basargin makes an addition to this letter: “Kukhelbeker is going today or tomorrow. He expects to be in Tobolsk around Sunday."

Leaving, Wilhelm Karlovich left his house and the entire household on Basargin, who, a few days after his departure, buried his young wife, but found the strength to deal with the affairs of Kuchelbecker. Departing for Omsk himself and stopping in Yalutorovsk, Basargin on May 5, 1846. writes to Kuchelbecker: “Before leaving, I arranged your affairs according to your desire. I entrusted Pelishev with the construction and alteration of the house, gave him 162 rubles for the first case ... I handed over one of your cows to Pelishev, I wanted to give the other one, which was still with the German, but the latter begged to leave it with him for the summer ... He lives very well in home, everything is fine. I handed over your things left with me in the chest to Evgenia Andreevna for safekeeping. Evgenia Andreevna is the same wife of the mayor Sobolevsky, who was in the bathhouse on Pushkin's birthday, celebrated in the Kuchelbeker house.

Kuchelbecker went to Tobolsk with the whole family and stopped by Pushchin in Yalutorovsk to say goodbye and leave him his works. Ivan Ivanovich, on his instructions, disassembled and systematized the manuscripts, wrapped each one in paper, titled it and tied it with twine. Kuchelbecker dictated a testamentary disposition, which Pushchin called "Notes dictated by V.K. Kuchelbeker on March 3, 1846, when he went sick from Kurgan to Tobolsk for treatment." The poet indicated which works to print without corrections, which should be corrected, revised, printed in extracts. There were also those that the author demanded to destroy. Although there was almost no hope for publication - back in January, Count Orlov notified the Siberian authorities that Küchelbecker's request for permission to print his works was refused.

In Tobolsk, Kuchelbeker was met by Decembrist friends Svistunov, Wolf, Fonvizin, Annenkov, Obolensky. They tried to create good conditions for him. Ferdinand Bogdanovich Wolf, an experienced physician, made every effort to maintain the health of the poet. Kuchelbecker met and became friends with Pavel Petrovich Ershov, the author of The Humpbacked Horse. Ershov became his constant interlocutor, reader, secretary. He wrote down poems under the dictation of the poet, wrote letters. Kuchelbecker was fading away. On June 11, he dictates his last letter to Vasily Zhukovsky. “My days are numbered: will I really let my good wife and lovely children go around the world? I speak with a poet, and besides that, a half-dying person acquires the right to speak without much ceremony. I feel, I know, I am absolutely convinced ... that Russia can oppose the Europeans with dozens of writers equal to me in imagination, in creative power, in learning and variety of writings. Forgive me... this proud stunt! But, really, my heart bleeds if you think that everything, everything I created, will perish with me, like an empty sound, like an insignificant echo.

Kuchelbecker was no longer destined to wait for an answer. On August 11, 1846, Wilhelm Karlovich died of consumption. Droshida Ivanovna in 1869 in a letter to her daughter Justina she told about this day. “He did not want to die so soon ... he died in Tobolsk at 11 o'clock in the morning in 1846 ... at his death there were a doctor and Mrs. von Vizina. He was on the move until he almost died, and the day before his death he walked around the room and talked more about the fact that in spite of the bad weather, he somehow felt especially good. He was buried in the Russian cemetery and, according to his desire, a grave was arranged for him between the graves of his friends: Prince Baryatinsky and Krasnokutsky. They buried him at the Zavalnoe cemetery near the Church of the Seven Youths. According to his will, they put him in a shirt that belonged to his beloved nephew Nikolai Glinka, who died in the Caucasus from wounds. In September 1846, still not knowing about the death of Kuchelbecker, Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy wrote to Briggen from Omsk: “Your news about Wilhelm Kuchelbecker is confirmed by letters from Tobolsk. He, it seems, is not a tenant in this world; and I believe that it is his poetic passion that kills him. If he had a particle of his brother's prose, he would be healthier. Poets with hot feelings do not live long. Long lived Voltaire, Goethe, cold people.

After the death of her husband, Droshida Ivanovna on September 4 turns to the Governor-General of Western Siberia, Karl Fedorovich Engelka, with a petition: “... By the will of God, on August 11 of this year, my husband died, and I was left with two young children, son Mikhail, seven years old and daughter Ustinya, three. On the part of my relatives I have no fortune, and on the part of my late husband I also do not hope to have sufficient help; and therefore I find myself compelled to ask Your Excellency to intercede from the Higher authorities for me and my children a state allowance, which in such cases is the Highest. Moreover, I humbly ask Your Excellency to order me to issue a passport to anyone who should be able to live freely and travel through the Siberian provinces. And this time, I sincerely ask Your Excellency, to give me the opportunity to return to the city of Kurgan in order to dispose of the remaining house and belongings there, for I did not come here by my own will, but by the will of my husband and with the Highest permission. Treasury allowance by order of Prince Gorchakov was issued immediately - 114 rubles. 28 kop. ser.

After the fortieth day, Droshida Ivanovna decided to move to Yalutorovsk for a while, perhaps at the invitation of Pushchin, who decided to take care of the family of a deceased friend. On November 9, Matvey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol wrote to Trubetskoy: “Our small colony has increased with three new members - the widow and two children of Wilhelm Kuchelbecker. Pushchin is a recognized trustee of our widows. His wonderful heart and just mind, possessing great tact, give every possible right to do so. We hope that the children of our deceased comrade will be taken in by relatives…, a seven-year-old boy attends our parish school, founded by our worthy and respected archpriest, and a little girl plays with dolls…”. Droshida Ivanovna settled in an outbuilding on the Bronnikova estate, and Pushchin lived in the house itself. From Yalutorovsk, Droshida Ivanovna corresponded with Justina Karlovna Glinka, who immediately decided to take the children to her upbringing. Droshida Ivanovna resisted, but the wives of the Yalutorovo Decembrists and Maria Volkonskaya in their letters convinced her to part with her children. Yustina Karlovna, having received at the beginning of 1847. permission to travel to Siberia, began to fuss about giving her to raise children, and on April 12, 1847. Minister of the Interior Perovsky informed Prince Gorchakov that the emperor allowed Justina Glinka to take the children away, but so that they were not called by their father's surname, but were Vasilievs. By this time, Yustina Karlovna with her daughters Natalya, Alexandra and Yustina were already in Yekaterinburg, living in the house of Vladimir Andreevich Glinka. They carried on a lively correspondence with Ivan Pushchin, prepared gifts for the Yalutorovsk Decembrists and their pupils. July 26, 1847 Natalya Grigorievna writes: “How grateful I am to you for taking care of my parcel! You won’t believe how sorry I am that Gutinka will be left without paints for a long time, and Tinichka (Küchelbeker’s daughter) without a hat, which is necessary for her ... We will probably be with you not earlier than September.

In August, Pushchin, in a letter to Dmitry Irinarkhovich Zavalishin, reports: “In August, Ustinya Karlovna Glinka came and took them (children - A.V.) to Yekaterinburg ... she is now busy with Mikhail Kuchelbeker from Barguzin being transferred here ... ". September 29, 1847 Natalya Glinka writes to the same Pushchin: “I must apologize for writing so badly ... This is from the unaccustomed to studying with children, they are chatting madly near me, pushing the table, interrupting with their questions ...”. So since September 1847. Misha and Yustina lived in Yekaterinburg in the care of their grandmother and aunts. Pushchin sent them the archive of Wilhelm Karlovich. Yustina Karlovna decided to return to Zakup in the autumn of 1848, spend the winter in Yekaterinburg, and in the summer go with Alexandra and Yustina for Zlatoust, for treatment with koumiss to strengthen their health. In addition, she was going to go with the children to the Serginsky waters, which is a hundred miles from Yekaterinburg. It was believed that these waters are good for scrofula, which Misha and Tinochka suffered from. Natalya also went with them. In the fall, Vladimir Andreevich's guests left, leaving only Natalya Grigoryevna with her children. Uncle gave his beloved niece in marriage to his closest assistant, Major General Odynets. For some time, Misha and Tinochka still lived in Yekaterinburg, and then Yustina Karlovna took them away.

After the departure of the children, Droshida Ivanovna felt homesick, Pushchin consoled her, and as a result, on October 4, 1849, their son Ivan was born, whose successor was Basargin. Droshida Ivanovna gave birth during Pushchin's absence from Yalutorovsk. He is still at the beginning of 1849. began to apply for permission to travel to the Turkinskie Mineralnye Vody for treatment and received permission in March. He left for Irkutsk in early June and returned to Yalutorovsk in December. Since the resort was located near Barguzin, Ivan Ivanovich went there, saw Mikhail Kuchelbeker, and possibly met Droshi Ivanovna's relatives.

Droshida Ivanovna had an unsold house in Kurgan. Whether she herself, being pregnant, went to Kurgan or through a confidant, but on July 7, 1849. the sale took place and a bill of sale was drawn up, according to which the house was sold for 400 rubles in silver to the tradesman Vasily Fedorovich Romanov. Romanov was married to Glafira Petrovna Richter, the sister of Nikolai Richter, Kuchelbecker's former secretary. After the sale of the house in Kurgan and the birth of a son who was hired by a nurse, Droshida Ivanovna leaves for Irkutsk to live in the Volkonsky house at the invitation of Maria Nikolaevna. The departure from Yalutorovsk took place on January 17, 1850, the child was only four months old, and he remained with Pushchin. He took Vanya away from Siberia on November 18, 1856. seven years old. Until the death of Ivan Ivanovich, Vanya lived with him, in 1858. was recorded in the merchant guild of the Novotorzhsky society under the name of Pushchin. He was assigned to study at the well-known Moscow private boarding school Zimmerman. Pushchin wrote to Obolensky on April 23, 1858: “You are talking about full adoption - of course, this could be done, but I do not want to touch on this, because it is necessary to bring the matter to the throne. Now there are all the ways to enter the university, therefore, it is up to Vanya to step forward ... ". After the death of Ivan Ivanovich, Vanya was adopted by Pushchin's brother, Nikolai, and bore his patronymic. He graduated from the university, was a doctor, lived in Orel and died in 1923.

While Ivan Ivanovich was alive, he sent Drosida Ivanovna a cash allowance, and she lived completely comfortably. Yakushkin, having arrived in Irkutsk, often met with her and wrote to Pushchin: "... she lives here very intelligently and disposes of the help she receives in the best possible way." After living for some time with the Volkonskys, she moved to the house of her niece, the eldest daughter of Mikhail Kuchelbeker Annushka, brought up in the Trubetskoy house, in the marriage of Mishtovt, whom Yakushkin called a glorious woman who was quite able to get along with her aunt. From Irkutsk, Droshida Ivanovna occasionally went to Barguzin to visit her parents, but these visits were short-lived, because she was bored there. From the treasury she received a small allowance - 114 rubles 28 kopecks in silver per year; since 1860 began to receive benefits from the Literary Fund. She was satisfied with the fate of her children. Misha and Tinochka wrote letters to her, which she read to all her friends. In 1879 Droshida Ivanovna moved to Kazan, and then to St. Petersburg, where she died in 1886. The last document about her is a note to the literary fund of the son of the Decembrist Volkonsky, Mikhail Sergeevich, in which he petitions for an allowance for her funeral. The Fund allocated 150 rubles, which were transferred to the son of Anna Mikhailovna Mishtovt.

The children of Wilhelm Karlovich and Droshida Ivanovna were brought up in the family of Justina Karlovna Glinka, with whom they lived abroad for a long time. In 1854 Tinochka wrote to her mother from Livorno, they spent the winter in Florence. Misha under the name Vasiliev in 1850. was assigned to a gymnasium in St. Petersburg, Ivan Ivanovich Pushchin in 1852. wrote to Fyodor Matyushkin: “I ask you to find in the Larinsky gymnasium the son of our deceased Wilhelm. Ask Misha Vasiliev there. A boy with talents, only here there was a big naughty - now, they say, he has improved. In 1855 Misha entered the university at the Faculty of Law. In 1856 the children were given back their father's surname and all the rights of the nobility. In 1863 Mikhail Kuchelbeker served as an ensign in the Tsarskoye Selo Rifle Battalion, rose to the rank of major. In 1876 served as director of the board of the Society for the improvement of the premises of the working and needy population in St. Petersburg. Died December 22, 1879. There is no information about his personal life.

Yustina Vilhelmovna, in her marriage, bore the surname Kosova, as before, she often traveled to Italy. In 1872 Alexander Poggio met her in Florence and wrote: “Mrs. Kosova turned out to be here, smart and sweet ... She was delighted with me as if she were her own. She is here with her aunt Glinka and two children. She was without legs after giving birth, but now she walked ... and easily and freely. In February 1872 in Florence, the Russian doctor Elin died, and Yustina Vilgelmovna showed great interest, cleaned him with flowers, read the psalter twice, followed the coffin. In 1875 she donated a part of her father's literary archive and the original manuscript of his diary for publication by the editors of the historical journal Russkaya Starina.

The first known owner of this estate was a Kurgan tradesman, and later a merchant of the 3rd guild, Danila Ivanovich Shusharin. In 1837, he sold his house with land and buildings to the wife of the political criminal Erasmus Klechkovsky Aneli. In connection with the addition to the family on August 21, 1841, Aneli Klechkovskaya buys, as more convenient, the former house of Rosen. By the way, the Klechkovskys were friendly with most of the Decembrists and repeatedly visited this house in 1836-1837. On October 24, 1842, Aneli sells his house for 400 silver rubles to the wife of the retired centurion Filimon Alekseevich Kinizhentsev Maria Fedorovna.

It is this house that is associated with the name of Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker. Particularly dangerous political criminals, to which the lyceum friend A.S. Pushkin, it was strictly forbidden to settle in crowded places. Therefore, for a long time Kurgan historians and local historians believed that the exiled Decembrist V.K. Kuchelbecker lived in a settlement in the village of Smolino, as he was prescribed. However, in the 1990s thanks to the research activities of the Kurgan journalist and local historian B.N. Karsonov managed to find out that the family of the exiled Decembrist had their own house in the city of Kurgan.

VC. Kuchelbecker arrived in our city on March 22, 1845 and immediately rented an apartment. After the defeat of the Decembrist movement, Kuchelbecker was sentenced first to imprisonment in the Shlisselburg fortress, then to exile in Eastern Siberia - in Transbaikalia. His health was undermined, and to alleviate his position in Siberian exile, the Decembrist was allowed to settle in a more favorable climate, which was considered the climate of the Kurgan district of the Tobolsk province. Moreover, the Kurgan mayor A. Sobolevsky himself carried the letters of the Decembrists and, most likely, looked through his fingers at the fact that the Decembrist lives in the city, and not in Smolino. It should be noted that on January 15, 1837, he married the daughter of the Barguzin postmaster, Drosida Ivanovna Artenova. In addition to his wife, along with the Decembrist, his five-year-old son Mikhail and one-year-old daughter Justina arrived in the city.

In the spring or summer of 1845, the sister of the Decembrist Yu.K.Kyukhelbeker (Glinka) bought for the family in Kurgan a typical one-story wooden house, recorded on Droshida Ivanovna. The total area of ​​the house was 103 square meters. V.V.Pundani suggested that in Kurgan V.K. Kuchelbecker first lived with N.P. Richter, teacher of the Russian language at the Kurgan district school. The Decembrist was introduced to the teacher by another exiled A.F. Bryggen. However, it is possible that opposite N.P. Richter, being a secretary under the Decembrist, who was rapidly losing his sight, lived in his house. It should be noted that although Nikolai Petrovich Richter was familiar with the Decembrists and even helped Briggen rewrite Caesar's translation, and then was a secretary under Kuchelbecker, he did not enjoy authority in the Kurgan district school where he worked, and even was known as an adventurer there.

Judging by Kuchelbecker's diary, the family moved to their house on September 21, 1845, and the Decembrist himself was "in addition sick", although the very next day he received the guest of the exiled Pole P.M. Vozhzhinsky. Shortly before leaving in February 1846, another Decembrist I.I. Pushchin secretly visited the house.

Decembrist I.I. Pushchin.

The family lived in a “favorable climate” for only 11 months. In February 1846 V.K. Kuchelbeker was allowed to settle in the city of Tobolsk, which at that time was the provincial center and, therefore, it was possible to get a more qualified medical care both in relation to eye disease and tuberculosis. At the time of the departure of the Decembrist N.V. Basargin, they asked to find a reliable person to rebuild the house, which was discussed in the correspondence in April 1846. In May 1846, before leaving for Omsk, Basargin entrusted the restructuring to a certain Pelishev, who entrusted 162 rubles and a cow for this and also, apparently, he himself lived for some time in the house. At the same time, Kuchelbekr's belongings were kept by Yevgenia Andreevna Sobolevskaya, the wife of the mayor.

In Tobolsk, the exiled Kuchelbeker died in August of the same year and was buried in the Zavalnoye cemetery of the city. After the funeral of her husband, the family of the Decembrist kept a house in Kurgan for some time, it was here that Drosida Ivanovna offered to “transfer” brother V.D. Kuchelbeker Mikhail Karlovich from Barguzin. On July 7, 1849, Droshida Ivanovna sold the house that remained in Kurgan, and a year later she left for relatives in the Irkutsk province.

The new owner of the house was the Kurgan tradesman Vasily Fedorovich Romanov, who was married to Glafira, the sister of Nikolai Richter. A.M. Vasilieva suggests that the Romanovs may have lived in the house before that. Under the new owners, an extension was made to the house. In September 1871, he sold the estate with a house to the noblewoman Anna Antonovna Butkevich. As early as 1876, the house was registered with Anna Kosko, a petty-bourgeois woman of Polish origin, who after her marriage in the early 1880s. became the wife of a nobleman. After his mother, he was owned until 1922 by Appolinary Anufrievich Kosko. Then, according to the decision of the Interdepartmental Commission for the municipalization of households, the estate passed to Galaktion Lukich Seleverstov, whose family lived in the house until the 1980s. At the same time, part of the house since 1975 belonged to the Department of Justice of the Kurgan Regional Executive Committee.

In memory of one of the closest friends of A.S. Pushkin to the remarkable poet Wilhelm Karlovich Kuchelbecker in the house where he lived for almost a year, today a museum is opened, which is a branch of the Kurgan Regional Museum of Local Lore.

Kuchelbecker Wilhelm Karlovich (1797-1846) - poet, playwright, literary critic. Born in St. Petersburg in a noble family of German origin. His early childhood was spent in Estonia. In 1811, Kuchelbecker entered the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. His closest lyceum friends were Delvig and Pushkin. The freedom-loving character of Kuchelbecker manifested itself early. Already in the Lyceum, he became a member of the "Holy Artel". Later, many members of the "artel" entered the secret society of the Decembrists. In 1819 he was elected to Free Society lovers of literature. The first printed works of Kuchelbecker appeared in the lyceum years (1815).

In 1820-1821, Küchelbecker was abroad (Germany, Italy, France). In Paris, he gave public lectures on Russian literature, which caused discontent among the tsarist government. He was ordered to return to Russia. From that time on, Küchelbecker was under police surveillance. For some time he served in the Caucasus as an official under General Yermilov. During this period, he met and became friends with A.S. Griboyedov.

After returning to St. Petersburg, Kuchelbecker joined the secret Northern Society. V. Küchelbecker took an active part in the Decembrist uprising (December 14, 1825). After the defeat of the uprising, he made an attempt to escape abroad, but was captured in Warsaw, sentenced to death, which was replaced by hard labor for 20 years. Subsequently, this measure was replaced by solitary confinement, and then exile to Siberia. Researchers associate the complexity of life not so much with everyday life as with the poet's loss of a positive ideal.

Siberia and his new way of life did not become a source of inspiration for Kuchelbecker, as it was, for example, with Baratynsky in Finland or with Fyodor Glinka in Karelia. Yes, this, apparently, could not be: their fates were too unequal, the transition was too difficult for a nobleman, poet, romantic and thinker, “whom the arrogant city once applauded” Paris, to the need to plow the land, dry moss for building a house, looking for a lost bull a few miles away - and all this in order to feed himself and his family. But this fact has a number of other explanations, not so grounded, rooted in the aesthetic ideal of the poets of civil romanticism. "Dithyrambic delight", emotional tension, high civic pathos, which are the stylistic basis of the Decembrist poetry, relied on the deep faith of the Decembrists in a positive ideal, heroic, effective, revolutionary. The loss of this positive ideal, the loss of faith in it, deprived the style of "civil romanticism" of political, moral, psychological and aesthetic support. Become a realist poet, comprehend social patterns historical process Küchelbecker could not. Therefore, his lyrical poetry was looking for the old supporting themes: friendship and a friendly circle, God and hope for higher justice.

In the work of Küchelbecker, two stages can be distinguished. His early works were written in a sentimental-elegiac spirit. At the second stage, civil and freedom-loving moods are clearly traced in his work. The main themes are friendship as a union of people who have dedicated themselves to serving freedom, brotherhood and justice. His lyrical hero is a fighter who is ready to accept death for freedom. The theme of the poet and poetry is revealed by Küchelbecker from the point of view of democratic poetry. The poet is a citizen, a fighter for the happiness of the people. After the tragic events of 1825, notes of despair, grief, reconciliation sounded in the lyrics of Kuchelbecker, the range of topics and genres expanded. The romantic motifs of despair and melancholy sounded more and more distinctly.

The highest poetic achievements of the school of younger archaists belong to Kuchelbecker. The historical irony lies in the fact that these achievements do not refer to high genres - ode, tragedy, which the poet cultivated in his youth, but to the genre that he condemned in his almanac Mnemosyne, to the years of Siberian exile after the defeat of the Decembrist movement, when he is blind and choked with loneliness, - to the genre of elegy.

In his best moments, by which only a true poet is recognized, Kuchelbecker created refined aphorism verses: “Envy rules over herds of mortals”, “He was one of the first in the flock of that eagle.” There was a romantic understanding of the poet's lot.

Shortly before his death, not a heroic poem, not an ode, but an elegy "Fatigue" summed up the dramatic and beautiful creative fate of Kuchelbecker. All his life he was ridiculed for his grandiloquent style, overloaded with grandiloquent Church Slavonic words and phrases; and "Fatigue" he wrote in such a way that it can be mistaken for the work of one of the poets of the late XIX century. Previously, he was reproached for being behind the times, now he was ahead of his time.

Wilhelm Kuchelbecker was born in St. Petersburg, according to the old style - June 10, 1797. He came from the family of the Saxon nobleman Karl Heinrich Küchelbecker, who moved to Russia in 1772. The poet's father was an educated man, he studied law at the University of Leipzig at the same time as A. N. Radishchev and I. V. Goethe. I was well acquainted with the latter.

Karl Ivanovich Küchelbecker, as they began to call him in Russia, was also an agronomist and a mining specialist. He entered the service of the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, was his secretary, and when in 1777 the construction of the estate of the Grand Duke - Pavlovsk began, he became its first director and organizer. At the same time, he managed the Kamenny Island in St. Petersburg, which belonged to Pavel. Judging by Wilhelm's reminiscences of his father, in the last days of Emperor Paul's life, he "entered the tsar's accidental grace and almost became the same temporary worker as Kutaisov." After the death of Paul, he lived mainly in Estonia, on the estate of Avinorm, a gift from the emperor. In 1797, on July 10, in St. Petersburg, a son was born in the family of Karl Kuchelbecker - Wilhelm Ludwig - the future Russian poet. Wilhelm's childhood passed in Avinorm. The "peaceful and happy" nature of these places, which the poet repeatedly recalled in his poems, was forever imprinted in his memory. In 1808, Wilhelm was sent to the Brikman boarding school in the city of Vero, and in 1811, on the recommendation of his mother's in-law, Minister of War M. B. Barclay de Tolly, he was placed in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. As for all lyceum students, the years of study at the Lyceum became for him the time of the formation of literary and political views, formed a circle of friends to which he was faithful all his life.

Wilhelm often found it difficult. Terribly touchy, exploding like gunpowder, he was also the subject of constant ridicule from his comrades.

At the Lyceum, he was bullied. Ungainly appearance: tall, thin, long nose, hard of hearing; clumsy character: innocence and irascibility; incoherent verses: very grandiloquent and ponderous - all this was ridiculed by the most ruthlessly. Wilhelm is given a train of insulting nicknames: Kühla, Küchel, Gezel, Becherküchel.

"Do you know what Bechelkuheriada is? Bechelkuheriada is the longest strip of land, a country that produces a great bargain in the vile verses; it has a province" Deaf Ear "- so subtly mocked the young wits over Kuchelbecker. And they brought him to the point that the clumsy lanky Wilhelm tried to drown himself in the Tsarskoye Selo pond, they pulled him out by force - wet, unhappy, covered with smelly mud. However, the lyceum students did not love anyone like Wilhelm. Pushchin and Pushkin became his friends:

The service of the Muses does not tolerate fuss;

beautiful must be

majestically:

But youth to us

advises slyly,

And noisy dreams delight us:

We will come to our senses - but too late!

Looking back

I don't see any traces there.

Tell me Wilhelm

not the same with us,

My own brother by muse,

by fate?

However, he immediately established himself as an excellent student. Inspector M. S. Piletsky gave the following review about Kuchelbecker, apparently referring to 1812: “Kyuchelbecker (Wilhelm), Lutheran confession, 15 years old. However, he is good-natured, sincere with some caution, zealous, inclined to constant exercise, chooses important subjects for himself, expresses himself fluently and is strange in address. In all words and deeds, especially in his writings, tension and grandiloquence are noticeable, often without decency. Inappropriate attention comes, perhaps, from deafness in one ear. Irritability of his nerves requires that he not be too busy, especially composing.

Many memories of Wilhelm's oddities have come down to us, but erudition, knowledge of languages, originality of judgments won him the respect of his comrades.

Among the interests of the lyceum students are history and philosophy, oriental languages ​​and folklore and, of course, poetry - German, English, French - and dramaturgy. The whole situation in the Lyceum contributed to the awakening of talent. And Küchelbecker began to write poetry in Russian and German, and from 1815 - to be published in the magazines Amphion and Son of the Fatherland. His desire to avoid "smooth writing", his somewhat difficult style, oriented primarily to Derzhavin, and his inclination towards archaisms aroused the ridicule of his Lyceum friends. In their parodies and epigrams, the length and heaviness of his poems, and his predilection for the hexameter, were ridiculed. But, despite this, Wilhelm has always been among the recognized lyceum poets. From the very beginning he went his own way and in 1833 he wrote in his diary that he deliberately did not want to be among the imitators of Pushkin.

When graduating from the Lyceum, Kuchelbecker received a third silver medal and an excellent certificate. In the rank of titular adviser, he, along with Pushkin, Gorchakov, Korsakov and Lomonosov, was enrolled in the Main Archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. They took the oath together with A. S. Griboyedov, then, apparently, their first acquaintance took place. In the same year, Kuchelbecker began to lecture on Russian literature in the junior classes of the Noble Boarding School at the Main Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg. At that time, Pushkin's younger brother Lev, Pushkin's future friends S. A. Sobolevsky and P. V. Nashchokin studied here, later the future poet and diplomat F. I. Tyutchev and the future composer M. I. Glinka became his students.

Along with teaching work, Kuchelbecker leads an intense literary and social activity. He is an active member of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts, chaired by A. E. Izmailov, and with the chairman of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (of which Kuchelbecker is also a member) F. N. Glinka, he is connected not only by family, but also by friendship. In 1820, he joined the near-Masonic lodge "Elect Michael" and became secretary of the Free Society of School Establishments on the Lancaster method of mutual teaching. The memoirs of one of the pupils of the Noble boarding school N. A. Markevich speak eloquently about Kuchelbeker of these years. He writes about his teacher as "the noblest and kindest, most honest being... Kuchelbecker was loved and respected by all the pupils. freedom and the constitution was in full swing. Küchelbecker preached it at the department of the Russian language."

In the same years, Kuchelbecker wrote a lot, published, and planned to publish his own journal. Among his poems of that time are imitations of Zhukovsky ("Night", "Awakening", "Life"), elegies ("Autumn", "Elegy", "To Delvig"). Kuchelbecker was the first to turn to the genre of messages to friends on the days of lyceum anniversaries. Such was the message to Pushkin and Delvig on July 14, 1818. Here for the first time their friendship is defined by the formula: "Our tripartite alliance, the Union of young singers is both pure and sacred." This formula will be repeatedly varied in their poems by all three poets.

In 1820, all of Pushkin's friends were worried about his fate. The poet was threatened with exile in Siberia or the Solovetsky Monastery. At a meeting of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, Delvig read his Poet. Kuchelbecker picked up his friend's idea of ​​freedom "to the sound of chains" and read his "Poets" at a meeting on March 22. In the work of Kuchelbecker, this poem became a program. It says that a true poet never finds a reward for his "high deeds" in the world of "villains and fools", an example is given of D. Milton, V. A. Ozerov, T. Tasso, for whom earthly life was "full of sorrows and poison," and glory came to them only in posterity. The poems are imbued with the pathos of pre-Decembrist citizenship: the poet's sacred duty is to guide the life path of people. Kuchelbecker urges Delvig, Baratynsky and Pushkin not to pay attention to the "contempt of the crowd", to the "hissing of snakes", he glorifies "Free, joyful and proud, And firm in happiness and misfortune, the Union of favorites of eternal muses!"

"... Since this play was read in society immediately after the expulsion of Pushkin became public, it is obvious that it was written on this occasion," wrote V. N. Karazin in his denunciation to the Minister of Internal Affairs V. P. Kochubey. This denunciation also complicated the position of Kuchelbecker. After the departure of a friend to Yekaterinoslav, he is also waiting for deportation. But at this time, Delvig received an invitation to take the place of secretary and constant interlocutor on a trip abroad of the chief chamberlain A. L. Naryshkin. The nobleman needed a secretary who spoke three languages. Delvig offered a friend instead. September 8, 1820 Kuchelbecker went on a trip.

It was not just a trip abroad. Kuchelbecker traveled to Europe, where in March 1820 the King of Italy swore allegiance to the constitution, in June there was a revolution in Naples, in July in Sicily. Revolutionary events are brewing in Piedmont and Portugal, the struggle for the liberation of Greece begins. Küchelbecker plunges into this seething European cauldron, carried away by the thought of a constitution, known for his ardor and enthusiasm. The travel diary and a number of poems are written in the form of appeals to friends who have remained in Russia. In this, the following of N. M. Karamzin is noticeable. Going on a trip, Kuchelbecker set himself two tasks: the first was to get acquainted with the cultural life of Europe and tell the Russian reader about it, and the second was to promote young Russian literature in Europe. Apparently, this was the reason for the desire to meet with German romantics and, in particular, with L. Tieck, and later with French liberal writers.

In Weimar in November 1820, an acquaintance with Goethe took place. Apparently, there were several meetings, as a result of which the two poets became "quite close". They spoke not only about the poems of Goethe himself, but also about Russian literature and the Russian language. Küchelbecker, in all likelihood, could not say a word about Pushkin to Goethe. These conversations ended with Goethe's request to write to him and "explain the property of our poetry and the Russian language."

Küchelbecker developed a vigorous activity to promote Russian culture in Paris. He made acquaintances with prominent journalists and writers, and above all with B. Constant, the leader of the French liberals. B. Konstan arranged for the Russian poet to give lectures on the Russian language and literature in the Academic Society of Sciences and Arts.

The text of only one of these lectures has survived. In it, Kuchelbecker addresses the progressive people of France on behalf of the thinking people of Russia, because "thinking people are always and everywhere brothers and compatriots." The lectures of the Russian poet were so radical that the police banned them. Küchelbecker had to leave the capital of France. The poet V.I. Tumansky, whom they met in Paris, helped him to leave.

Kuchelbecker returns to Russia. Official circles perceive him as unreliable. It was impossible to stay in St. Petersburg, and friends helped the poet "decide" on A.P. Yermolov, the head of Georgia. Küchelbecker did not stay long in the south. Having gone there in September 1821, already in May 1822 he had to leave the Caucasus because of a duel with Yermolov's relative and secretary N. N. Pokhvisnev. But these few months were of great importance for the development of his views and tastes. First of all, the renewed acquaintance with Griboedov played a role in this. “They showed complete unity of views,” writes Yu. N. Tynyanov, “the same patriotism, the same awareness of the pettiness of lyrical poetry that does not correspond to great tasks, and finally, an interest in drama.”

Having met a congenial person, Kuchelbecker wholeheartedly distanced himself from this new hobby, for some time opposing Griboyedov to his former friends. After the Caucasus, Kuchelbecker lived in Zakupa, his sister's estate in the Smolensk province. He was in love with A. T. Pushkin, was going to marry her, dreamed of returning to St. Petersburg and publishing a magazine, wrote the tragedy "Argivians", the poem "Cassandra", the beginning of the poem about Griboyedov.

The last two and a half years before December 14 were, perhaps, the most eventful in the life of Kuchelbecker. It was at this time that he became one of the largest Decembrist poets, a leading critic and theorist of the new, Decembrist direction of literature, preaching the independence and patriotism of Russian poetry. At the end of July 1823, Kuchelbecker arrived in Moscow. Together with V. Odoevsky and Griboyedov, he begins to prepare the almanac "Mnemosyne" for publication. The success of the first part of the almanac, published at the beginning of 1824, was brilliant. Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Baratynsky, Yazykov, Shevyrev, V. Odoevsky published their works in it. Kuchelbecker also published a lot there. A review appeared in "The Well-Meaning" highly appreciating the almanac (authorship is attributed to Ryleev). In the second part of "Mnemosyne" a program article by Küchelbecker "On the direction of our poetry, especially lyric poetry, in last decade". The article with great force and sharpness reflected the views of a new literary trend - the Decembrist writers, for whom the "originality" of the author, freedom from imitation even of the largest foreign samples, came first. "The faith of the forefathers, domestic morals," wrote the poet, , songs and folk tales are the best, purest, most reliable sources for our literature. "He called for "throw off the German diabolical chains" and "be Russian." The following books of the almanac did not have such success. The search for earnings began again. but to no avail.

And the time was approaching December 14th. Küchelbecker did not have an organizational connection with the future Decembrists until the very end of 1825. However, with all his activities, way of thinking and aspirations, Küchelbecker has long been the spokesman for the ideology of the progressive nobility of Russia. In the tragedy "The Argives" he tried to raise questions about the ways to destroy tyranny, about the possibility and legitimacy of killing a tyrant, about the active forces of a coup d'état. When reworking the tragedy in 1825, a decision appeared about the need to rely on the revolt of the people in the coup. Any reason is used by Küchelbecker to declare his civic position. In September 1825, a duel took place between the adjutant wing V. D. Novosiltsev and a member of the Northern Society, lieutenant of the Semenovsky regiment K. P. Chernov, who stood up for the honor of his sister. Chernov's funeral turned into a serious demonstration. Kuchelbecker tried to read his poems "On Chernov's Death" on the grave, full of revolutionary pathos. In his critical articles, the poet also stood on the positions of Decembrism. Therefore, when "a few days after receiving the news of the death of the emperor" he was accepted by Ryleev into the Northern Society, it was a purely formal act that gave him the opportunity to actively participate in the speech. The testimony given by him during the investigation excludes the possibility of an accidental enthusiasm for impending events.

Kuchelbecker's behavior on the day of the uprising was not accidental either. His ebullient nature finally got a chance to show itself. He visits the rebel regiments, tries to bring S. P. Trubetskoy to the square, participates in the election of E. P. Obolensky as a dictator, joins the rebels on Senate Square with weapons in his hands, shoots at Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, tries to lead the soldiers of the Guards crew ... All these are real cases. They show Kuchelbecker as one of the most active and active participants in the uprising. And the fact that he was the only one who managed to escape from Petersburg suggests that even after the defeat he retained clarity of thought and decisiveness of action. He was arrested in Warsaw, having learned from a verbal portrait.

Arrest, trial, sentence - fifteen years of hard labor, replaced by Nikolai for fifteen years in solitary confinement. There were endless transfers from prison to prison. On April 25, 1826, he was transferred from the Peter and Paul Fortress to Shlisselburg, in October 1827 he was transferred to Dinaburg. On the way, a meeting with Pushkin took place at the Zalazi station, near Borovichi. In 1831 he was transferred to Reval, then to Sveaborg. Reading and writing were the only occupations for ten years (the term was shortened). Torn off from friends and like-minded people, the poet found himself in an intellectual vacuum, in which he was helped by his original mind and passionate nature. The poet survived and remained a poet until the end of his days. The diary of 1831 - 1845 reflects the hard work of the mind of a man, almost deprived of the opportunity to keep abreast of the events of intellectual life, but not broken by this. It began on April 25, 1831 in the Reval prison, and only blindness stopped this work. The diary was not a confession, but it became the most important document of Russian social thought, since it contained the thoughts of the greatest Decembrist poet about literature, history, and human character.

The loss of the political ideal deprived Küchelbecker's work of moral and aesthetic support; spiritual loneliness prevented the development of a system of views on the world, did not allow the development of realistic tendencies. In his lyrics, one can note the strengthening of religious sentiments, the repetition of already known themes that strengthened him in loneliness - this is primarily the theme of friendship and the theme of the poet's hard fate.

And in confinement, he felt close to his friends. In 1845, in the poem "On the death of Yakubovich" he will name these friends and like-minded people: "Lyceum students, Yermolovites, poets, Comrades! .." there was a person who inflicted them, sincere gratitude for kindness and participation - this, perhaps, is the main thing in the character of Kuchelbecker, which helped him endure all the hardships of fate. Therefore, the theme of friendship, messages to old friends and new acquaintances make up a significant part of what was written in captivity.

On the other hand, the theme of the plight of the unrecognized poet is increasingly heard in his poems. Examples now are not only Camões, Tasso and others, but also their own fate and the fate of close poets. Awareness of the special prophetic mission of the poet, the holiness of his existence has always been inherent in Kuchelbecker. This topic was especially angry and passionate in "The Curse". Ryleev acts as a prophet proclaiming a bright future for Russia in Kuchelbeker's poem "Ryleev's Shadow", written in conclusion.

No matter how difficult the conditions of life in the fortress were, they allowed him to write without being distracted by solving everyday problems that unsettled him before and would face him in exile. Getting acquainted with what Küchelbecker was able to write in conclusion, you understand how powerful his talent was. The deprivation of live communication with friends and opponents in the literary struggle significantly narrowed his possibilities. And yet, the result of this work is amazing: the poems "David", "Yuri and Xenia", "Orphan", the mystery "Izhora", the tragedy "Prokofy Lyapunov", prose, many lyric poems - this is an incomplete list created over the years. In a letter to N. I. Grech dated April 13, 1834, Kuchelbecker lists articles that he has already prepared: about humor, about Greek digamma, about Merzlyakon, Pushkin, Puppeteer, Marlinsky, Shakespeare, Goethe, Thomson, Crabbe, Moore, Walter Scott , as well as a few "light articles".

At the end of 1835, Küchelbecker was released from the fortress. That feeling of freedom came, which the poet had been waiting for with such impatience. But the exile in which the poet found himself brought so many new worries that there was almost no time left for creativity. He had to do physical labor in order to be able to live on his own and help his brother's family. In the autumn of 1836, Kuchelbecker married the daughter of the postmaster in Barguzin, Drosida Ivanovna Arsenova. It was a marriage not for love, but for convenience. The poet hoped, if not in his wife, then in his children, to find friends who would share his sorrows and joys. The mere consciousness that he, to whom, in his own words, "the haughty city once applauded" - Paris, must plow and sow, dry moss in order to caulk the walls of the hut, look for a lost bull, could not become a source of inspiration ... Spiritual loneliness made it impossible to develop his poetic world. And this world narrowed down to purely everyday sketches and messages to those with whom he could communicate in exile.

Only one theme continued to sound more and more poignant in his poems. This is the theme of the poet's heavy lot, his "black fate" among "ferocious sorrows", in a world destroyed by "the atrocities of the ignorant". On the Lyceum anniversary of 1836, Kuchelbecker sends poems to Pushkin, in which he joyfully and solemnly addresses the Friend: "Pushkin! Pushkin! It's you! Your image is my light in the sea of ​​darkness!" Not yet accustomed to the relative freedom that he felt after leaving the fortress, the poet writes that his "heart beats young and bold ...".

Kuchelbecker learned about Pushkin's death on the eve of his friend's birthday (May 26). The poems of Pushkin's Shadow are dated May 24, 1837. The death of a friend who was for him an "inspired comrade", an unsurpassed example of high spirit and talent, a beacon in all the hardships of fate, left a tragic reflection on many subsequent poems. The jubilee lyceum poem of 1837 became a hymn to the deceased friend. Since that time, thoughts about the fate of poets, about their own fate, have become increasingly gloomy. The shadows of dead friends appear more and more often in his poems. Kuchelbecker had to outlive almost all his poet friends: Ryleev, Griboyedov, Delvig, Pushkin, Baratynsky. Now their example, instead of Camões and Taeso, becomes a measure of the severity of poetic fate.

However, the natural sense of optimism did not allow the poet to become isolated in this tragic worldview. Almost everyone with whom he had to communicate became the recipients of messages: the city, the doctor A. I. Orlov in Verkhneudinsk, the fifteen-year-old girl Annushka Razgildeeva, who became his student in Aksha, M. N. Volkonskaya, whom he visited in Krasnoyarsk, and others.

The harsh living conditions undermined the already not very strong health. In 1845, Küchelbecker went blind. But even this could not drown out his poetic voice:

I knew exile, I knew prison,

I recognized the blindness of the dawnless darkness,

And the formidable conscience learned reproaches,

And I feel sorry for the slaves of my dear homeland.

Shortly before his death, Kuchelbecker dictated to Pushchin his literary testament and a letter to Zhukovsky asking for help. On August 11, 1846, Küchelbecker died. “He was on the move until he almost died, and the day before his death he walked around the room and talked more about the fact that, despite the bad weather, he somehow feels especially good.” Pushchin took care of the family, and later the children were brought up in the family of the poet's sister Yu. K. Glinka. In 1856, they were returned to the title of nobility and the surname of their father.

Poet, Decembrist; genus. June 10, 1797 in Gatchina, d. August 11, 1846 in Tobolsk. According to Küchelbecker's own testimony, he is German by father and mother, but not by language: "until the age of six," he says, "I did not know a word of German, my natural language is Russian." But the environment in which his childhood years passed on the estate of his father Avinorme (Estland province), the environment, the early manifestation of a tendency to fantasy and enthusiasm, fueled by a passion for knightly poetry, and then training in the city of Verro (Estland province) - made the boy Küchelbecker is not a Russian youth at all. He entered the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (immediately after the opening of the latter) with a very uncertain knowledge of the Russian language. Upon the brilliant completion of the course at the Lyceum, from which Küchelbecker emerged as a decent connoisseur of new languages ​​​​and literature and an enthusiastic admirer of the classical world, he decided on the College of Foreign Affairs and at the same time was a senior teacher of Russian and Latin in the Noble boarding school established at the Main Pedagogical Institute; at the same time, he was a secretary in the Society for the Establishment of Schools by the Method of Mutual Teaching, gave private lessons (by the way, he was the tutor of the future composer M. I. Glinka) and was an active member of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts. But pedagogical studies, the leisure from which he devoted to literary studies; Kuchelbecker soon left. In August 1820, he went abroad as a secretary to the Chancellor of Russian Orders, Chief Chamberlain A. L. Naryshkin. In 1821, having visited Germany and southern France with Naryshkin, Kuchelbecker lived in Paris. There he became close to some writers and scholars and gave public lectures to the Atlienée Royal on the Slavic language and Russian literature. These lectures have not reached us, but they were hardly successful - at least A. I. Turgenev, in whose hands they were, calls them a curiosity, for Kuchelbecker, the consequences of his debut in front of the French as a lecturer were very sad: after one lecture, in which he spoke about the influence of the free city of Novgorod and its vecha on ancient Russian writing, he received an order through the embassy to stop lecturing and return to Russia; Naryshkin broke off all relations with him. Returning to St. Petersburg, Kuchelbecker found himself in a very distressed situation: without funds and under suspicion about lectures in Paris. However, at the request of A.I. Turgenev and gr. Nesselrod, he managed to get a place in Tiflis to be under Yermolov, together with whom in the autumn of 1821 he went to the Caucasus. But even here he did not stay long: the next year he had a major quarrel with one of Yermolov's close associates, which ended in a duel; Kuchelbecker had to leave the service, along with this he had to part with A.S. Griboyedov, with whom he was on very friendly terms. He left for the Smolensk province and lived until the middle of 1823 on his sister's estate (the village of Zakupe). Financial insecurity forced Küchelbecker to seek some kind of service. He intended to move to the service in St. Petersburg, he dreamed of publishing a magazine, then he was looking for a place in Odessa to c. Vorontsov; but neither personal requests nor the petitions of friends were successful, and he spent a little over two years in Moscow, subsisting on the means that brought him lessons. In Moscow, he, together with Prince V.F. Odoevsky, published 4 books of the Mnemosyne collection. The main goals of this now little-known publication were: "to spread a few new ideas that have flashed in Germany; to draw the attention of readers to subjects little known in Russia, at least to make them talk about them; to put limits on our predilection for French theoreticians; finally, to show that not all items are exhausted, that we, looking for trinkets in foreign countries for our occupations, forget about the treasures that are close to us. True, not all the goals outlined by the editors were achieved with equal success, but Mnemosyne quite successfully introduced the Russian public to the fruits of German culture and philosophy, and this collection is of great historical and literary interest, although it did not enjoy outstanding success in its time; it was attended, in addition to editors, such major writers as Pushkin, Griboyedov, Baratynsky, Prince. Vyazemsky and others. In Mnemosyne, by the way, Küchelbecker also placed his interesting extensive memories of a trip abroad. Kuchelbecker spent 1825 without definite occupations, partly in Moscow, partly in St. Petersburg, partly on his sister's estate. In the autumn of this year, he returned to St. Petersburg and settled with his friend Prince. A. I. Odoevsky. Here he joined the society of persons who took part in the indignation of December 14th. On the evening of that fateful day, having left the capital, Kuchelbecker spent several days on the estates of his relatives (in the Pskov and Smolensk provinces) and intended to flee abroad. But immediately upon arrival in Warsaw, he was recognized, arrested and taken to St. Petersburg. The investigation showed that Kuchelbeker belonged to the Northern Society, into which Ryleev was introduced; He was found guilty of attempted murder by the Supreme Criminal Court. book. Mikhail Pavlovich during the rebellion on the square, belonging to secret society with knowledge of the goal and in the fact that he personally acted in a mutiny with the shedding of blood, he himself shot at General Voinov, "etc. Mikhail Pavlovich was pardoned: the death penalty was commuted to a 15-year imprisonment in the fortresses, and after this period, a life-long exile to Siberia.Küchelbecker spent 10 years in prison, first in the Peter and Paul Fortress, then Shlisselburg, Dinaburg, Revel and, finally, Sveaborg; in December 1835 he was sent to a settlement in eastern Siberia, in the Trans-Baikal region, in the city of Barguzin, where his brother Mikhail Karlovich lived, also exiled for participating in the uprising on December 14. At first, life in Barguzin seemed to Kuchelbecker " pleasant and free "; it seemed to him that for complete well-being he lacked only the means and the society necessary for him. But he soon began to experience languor e and boredom, which his marriage could not dispel; he married the daughter of a local postmaster, but his wife did not understand and did not share his hobbies for poetry and did not sympathize with his poetic studies, in which Kuchelbecker still found his only solace. He bitterly complained that he "was bogged down in insignificant petty torments, drowned in dirty cares." With his literary works, he thought, among other things, to alleviate his financial situation, but a two-fold attempt to ask permission to publish his works was not successful. Need and illness finally broke the torn health of the weak Kuchelbecker, and at the beginning of 1845 he began to see badly, and soon almost went blind; in August of the following year he died of consumption in Tobolsk, where he was allowed to move in consideration of his failing health. All the Decembrists who were in Tobolsk were with him in the last minutes of his life and paid him their last tribute. - So sadly ended the long-suffering fate of Küchelbecker, whose name has been preserved by history not so much because of his services to Russian literature, but because of special conditions: his name could not be excluded from the constellation of the glorious names of our writers of the early 19th century, because the latter always considered him the closest member of their environment; on the other hand, Küchelbecker could not be forgotten in his ill-fated fate.

Already at the Lyceum, his passion for poetry manifested itself, but for a long time he could not cope with the technique of our versification, for which he was often ridiculed by his later famous comrades; A. I. Turgenev quite thoroughly reproached him for stylistic errors against the Russian language even in the 1820s. But as a kind, dear comrade, Kuchelbecker was very fond of his classmates, including Pushkin, Delvig, Pushchin, Baron Korf, and others. Everyone who knew him was attracted to Kuchelbecker the young man, his ability to be sincerely carried away, his sensitivity, kindness of heart, gullibility; these features were not erased from his character even by the severe trials that befell the ill-fated writer in the course of his life. Griboedov wrote about him: "he gives himself to everyone he meets with the most sincere enthusiasm, cordiality and love"; Zhukovsky told him: "You are created to be kind ... you have a tender heart"; book. Vyazemsky found in him "a lot worthy of respect and compassion"; for Pushkin, he was always "a dear brother of the lyceum life." And the whole circle of his acquaintances, among whom were almost all of our outstanding writers of that time (Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Delvig, Gnedich, Baratynsky, Griboedov, Odoevsky, Turgenev, Prince Vyazemsky, etc.) always treated him with cordiality, everyone sympathized with him in his misfortunes, which befell him so often, and did everything they could to make his existence easier. In 1823, V. I. Tumansky wrote to him: "some inevitable fatum controls your days and your talents and seduces both of them from the straight path."

However, in the literary activity of Kuchelbecker there are features that clearly and favorably distinguish him from the crowd of mediocre writers of that time. Kuchelbecker began to write early, and while still a lyceum student, he had already seen his works in print signed: Wilhelm. His first experiments were poetry and articles of a critical nature. The poetic activity of Küchelbecker and the early and late era is much lower than his critical articles. Kuchelbecker's verse is heavy, not sustained, and denounces an inept versifier in the author; Kuchelbecker's style is far from correct, thanks to an imperfect knowledge of the Russian language and a predilection for Shishkov's literary opinions. We must agree with Kuchelbecker's contemporaries that in his verses one can notice a lot of intelligence, knowledge, erudition, but almost not noticeable that true enthusiasm, without which poetry turns into poetry. There was a lot of enthusiasm, exaltation, fantasy, sensitivity in Kuchelbecker, but he was not given poetic pathos. But no one can deny in him sincerity and the most ardent love for poetry. Perhaps the best poetic works of Kuchelbecker should be recognized as the poems written by him in exile: they contain a lot of lively religious feeling and their soft, elegiac tone, alien to bitterness, touches the reader's soul. All of Kuchelbecker's smaller poems are lyrical and predominantly elegies. The small poetic works of Kuchelbecker do not have great poetic merit, they are not in larger ones either, like "Shakespeare's Spirits", the mystery "Izhora", and the poem "The Eternal Jew". It is known that even Pushkin, who treated his friend with such sympathy, called him "Shakespeare's Spirits" - rubbish, and Belinsky completely rejected his poem. - Küchelbecker's critical articles have more merit and significance, although it must be admitted that in the field of criticism, Küchelbecker did not have well-established convictions. So, despite all his respect for Pushkin, he once did not hesitate to put him on the same level as the Dollmaker, but Prince. Shikhmatov compared with Calderon. Nevertheless - some of Küchelbecker's theoretical views on literature deserve, in their time, attention - such are, for example, his attempt to be strictly critical of the authorities of the old time, pointing to "the faith of the forefathers, customs, domestic chronicles and folk tales, as the best , the purest, most reliable source for our literature"; Kuchelbecker's calls for realism, nationality, his serious discussions about romanticism, etc., are not without significance for that time. Therefore, despite some oddities and delusions of Küchelbecker, one must recognize his remarkable mind, excellent acquaintance with foreign literature (especially German) and undoubted abilities, the correct development, direction and expression of which were greatly harmed by his extreme exaltation and lack of sense of proportion. As a person, Küchelbecker had a lot good sides, of which the main ones are his sincerity and kindness. It seems that no one understood him better than Baratynsky, who, among other things, wrote about him: “He is an entertaining person in many respects ... he has great talents, and his character is very similar to the character of the Genevan eccentric (Rousseau); the same sensitivity and incredulity, the same restless self-esteem, leading to immoderate opinions in order to distinguish in a special way opinions, and sometimes the same enthusiastic love for truth, for the good, for the beautiful, to which he is ready to sacrifice everything; a man worthy of respect and pity at the same time, born for the love of fame and misfortune. "E. A. Engelhardt gave a less benevolent, but perhaps more accurate description of him:" Kuchelbecker has great abilities, diligence, good will, a lot of heart and good nature, but there is absolutely no taste, tact, grace, measure and specific purpose. A sense of honor and virtue is sometimes manifested in him by some kind of quixoticism. He often falls into thoughtfulness and melancholy, is subjected to torments of conscience and suspicion, and only carried away by some vast plan comes out of this painful state.

There is no complete collection of Küchelbecker's works; his poems and articles were published in the following magazines and collections: "Amphion" (1815), "Son of the Fatherland" (1816-1825), "Good-meaning" (1818-1825), "Competitor of education and charity" ( 1819-1821), "Nevsky Spectator" (1820), "Polar Star" (1825), etc. In addition, Kuchelbecker placed many works in the collection "Mnemosyne"; after the death of Kuchelbecker, some of his works and his diary were published in Fatherland Notes (vol. 139), Bibliographic Notes (1858), and Russian Antiquity. The largest number Küchelbecker's poems are placed in the "Collected Poems of the Decembrists" (Library of Russian Authors, issue II, Berlin 1862) and in the book "Selected Poems of V.K. Küchelbecker", Weimar, 1880. The following works of Küchelbecker were published separately: "The Death of Bayon ", Moscow 1824; "Shakespeare's Spirits" - a dramatic joke in two acts, dedicated to A. S. Griboyedov, St. Petersburg. 1825; "Izhora" - mystery, St. Petersburg. 1835 (published anonymously, moreover, only the first part, the rest of the world did not see); "Eternal Jew" - a poem, St. Petersburg. 1878 Many of Küchelbecker's works remain in manuscript.

The literature on Küchelbecker is extensive. The greatest amount of information has been preserved about him as a participant in the indignation on December 14; this kind of information can be found in all the literature about the Decembrists. The main sources and benefits: "Reports of the Commission of Inquiry", St. Petersburg. 1826; A. I. Dmitriev-Mamonov, "Decembrists in Western Siberia", M. 1895, M. I. Bogdaposhich, "History of the reign of Emperor Alexander I"; Schnitzler, "Histoire intime de la Russie", Brux. 1847, III; N. A. Gastfreind; "Kuchelbecker and Pushchin"; SPb. 1901 (formerly in "News. World History;" 1900, No. 12); A. N. Pypin, "History of Russian Ethnography"; his own, "Public movement in Russia under Alexander I"; N. I. Grech, "Notes about my life", St. Petersburg. 1886 - Grech's characterization of Kuchelbecker is very sharp and not entirely fair, and in general the information he gives about Kuchelbeker is largely inaccurate; see his own memoirs in "Polyarn. Zvezda" 1862 and in "Russk. Vestnik" 1868, No. 6; for biographical essays on Küchelbecker, see Russk. Starina, 1875, vol. 13 (amendments to this article in Ancient and New Russia, 1878, No. 2) and Kolyupanov's Biographies of A. I. Koshelev ", vol. I, M. 1889, book. II (in the same place in the notes and a list of the works of Küchelbecker); in addition: "Russian Archive" 1870 No. 2, 6, 8-9; 1871 No. 2; 1881, No. 1; "Russian Antiquity" 1870, No. 4; 1873 No. 7; 1875 v. 13; 1883 vols. 39 and 40; 1884 v. 41; 1891, v. 69. Notes: M. I. Glinka, St. Petersburg. 1887, P. A. Karatygin, St. Petersburg. 1880; I. I. Panaeva, St. Petersburg. 1876, etc.; dictionaries of Gennadi, Brockhaus, Toll and others; "Collection of Shchukin's old papers", vol. VIII, M. 1901; "Contemporary" 1869, VII; "S.-Fri. Ved." 1866 No. 176; Grotto, "Pushkin - his lyceum comrades and mentors" St. Petersburg. 1887; "New. Time" 1880, No. 1640. Works by A. S. Pushkin (ed. Liter. Fund and Academic); Works by A. S. Griboyedov St. Petersburg. 1889; "Ostafievsky archive of Prince Vyazemsky" vol. II, St. Petersburg. 1899 (and approx.). For the father of V. K. Kuchelbeker, Karl Ivanovich (d. in 1809), the first director of Pavlovsk, see "Russian Antiquity" 1870, vol. I, pp. 429-434 and in the book "Pavlovsk. Outline of history and description". SPb. 1877. About the son of V. K. Kuchelbeker, Mikhail Vilgelmovich, (born July 29, 1840, died December 22, 1879) see "New Time" 1879 No. 1374. "Molva" 1879 , No. 356, "Voice" 1879, No. 325.

Iv. Kubasov.

(Polovtsov)

Küchelbecker, Wilhelm Karlovich

Famous writer (1797-1846). K. studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, where he was a friend of Pushkin; friendship did not prevent the latter from pursuing K.'s poetic exercises with epigrams. Since 1815, K.'s poems began to appear in Vestnik Evropy William),"Son of the Fatherland", "well-intentioned". In 1817-20. K. served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1820 he went abroad and gave lectures on Slavic literature in the Paris Athenaeum, which were suspended at the request of the Russian embassy as being too liberal. In 1822, Mr.. K. served in the Caucasus under Yermolov; he became close friends with Griboyedov there. In 1823-1825. he lived in Moscow, where, together with Prince. Odoevsky, published four books of the collection: "Mnemosyne". K. participated in the conspiracy of the Decembrists and shot, on Senate Square, at the led. book. Mikhail Pavlovich; then he fled and, intending to hide abroad, arrived in Warsaw, where he was recognized by signs reported by his former friend, Bulgarin. Sentenced to death, he was pardoned, at the request of led. book. Mikhail Pavlovich, and sentenced to eternal hard labor, replaced by solitary confinement in Shlisselburg and Kexholm. Materially, K. was not particularly in need, he received books and just could not print his works, despite the intercession of Zhukovsky. Shortly before his death, K., according to Grech, was transported to his sister's estate, where he died. K., not distinguished by talent, could not break out of the shackles of the old school: his works are written in a heavy language and dotted with a mass of Slavicisms. In the role of a political figure, which he hoped to play, he was completely sincere, although he was very fond of, for which Pushkin compared him with Anacharsis Kloots. Separately, K. published: "The Death of Byron" (Moscow, 1824); "Shakespeare's Spirits", a dramatic joke (St. Petersburg, 1825); "Izhora", mystery play (St. Petersburg, 1825). In "Russian Antiquity" (1875 and 1878, extracts from his diary and a poem written by him in 1842: "The Eternal Zhid" were printed. Compare Greek, "Notes of a non-Decembrist" (B., 1862 and "Russian Bulletin ", 1868, No. 6; biased and often unfair characterization).

(Brockhaus)

Kuchelbecker, Wilhelm Karlovich

(10.6.1797-11.8.1846). - Retired collegiate assessor, writer.

Genus. In Petersburg. Father - stat. owls. Karl Küchelbecker (28.12.1784-6.3.1809), a Saxon nobleman, agronomist, the first director of Pavlovsk (1781-1789), was close to Paul I in the last years of his life; mother - Yustina Yak. Lohmen (20.3.1757-26.3.1841, in 1836 was in the Widow's House). Until 1808 he lived in the Estonian estate Avinorm, granted to his father by Paul I, in 1808, on the recommendation of a distant relative M.B. with the rank of IX class (1st graduation, comrade A. S. Pushkin) - 10.6.1817. Enrolled together with Pushkin in the Collegium of Foreign. affairs, at the same time taught Russian and Latin in the Noble boarding house at Ch. Pedagogical Institute (later 1 gymnasium), retired - 08/09/1820, left St. Petersburg abroad as a secretary under the chief chamberlain A. A. Naryshkin (recommended by A. A. Delvig) - 8.9. After a stay in Germany and Southern France, in March 1821 he arrived in Paris, where in the anti-monarchist society "Ateney" he gave public lectures on the Slavic language and Russian literature, their content displeased the government, and Kuchelbecker was asked to immediately return to Russia. At the end of 1821 he was appointed to the Caucasus as an official for special assignments under A.P. Yermolov with the rank of count. As., remained in this position only until May 1822, when, after a duel with Pokhvisnev, he was forced to resign and leave Tiflis. For a year he lived on the estate of his sister Yu. K. Glinka - p. Zakupe of the Dukhovshchinsky district of the Smolensk province, settled in Moscow on July 30, 1823, where he taught at the University boarding school and gave lessons in private homes, while simultaneously engaged in literary activities, in 1824-1825 he published with the book. VF Odoevsky collection "Mnemosyne", from April. 1825 lived in St. Petersburg, first with his brother M. K. Küchelbecker (see), and since October - with the Decembrist Prince. A. I. Odoevsky (see). There were no peasants. Member of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (employee - 11/10/1819, active member - 03/01/1820).

Member of the pre-Decembrist organization "Sacred Artel" and the Northern Society (November - December 1825). An active participant in the uprising on the Senate Square.

After the defeat of the uprising, he fled from St. Petersburg, arrested at the entrance to the suburbs of Warsaw by non-commissioned officer Grigoriev - 19.1.1826, brought to St. Petersburg chained - 25.1. still. 26.1.1826") in No. 12 of the Alekseevsky ravelin. With him was arrested his serf servant Semyon Balashov, who was chained in iron, removed from him on 30/4/1826.

Convicted of the 1st category and confirmed on 10/7/1826 sentenced to hard labor for 20 years, transferred to the Kexholm fortress - 27/7/1826, the term was reduced to 15 years - 22/8/1826, delivered to the Shlisselburg fortress - 30/4/1827. By Vysoch. by order, instead of Siberia, he was sent to the prison companies at the Dinaburg fortress - 10/12/1827 (signs: height 2 arsh. 9½ tops, "face white, clean, black hair, brown eyes, nose oblong with a hump"), arrived there - 17.10. 1827, it is allowed from time to time to notify the mother with letters about oneself - 5.8.1829, according to Vysoch. by order (reported to the III Division by the general on duty of the Chief of Staff on 10.4.1831) was sent under the strictest supervision through Riga to Revel - 15.4. 1831 (arrived there - 19.4), where he was kept in the Vyshgorod castle, from where, by order of Ch. Headquarters (27.4.1831) sent by water to Sveaborg in the prison companies - 10/7/1831, arrived there - 10/14/1831. By decree of December 14, 1835, he was released from the fortress and converted to a settlement in the city of Barguzin, Irkutsk province, where he was delivered on January 20, 1836, at his own request he was transferred to the Aksha fortress on September 16, 1839, where he gave lessons to the daughters of Major A. I. Razgildeev (left from Barguzin in January 1840), transfer to the village of Smolino in the Kurgan district was allowed - 06/09/1844, left Aksha - 09/2/1844, arrived in Kurgan (where he lived before leaving for Tobolsk) - 03/25/1845, allowed to go for a while to Tobolsk for treatment - 1/28/1846, arrived in Tobolsk - 7/3/1846. He died in Tobolsk and was buried at the Zavalnoye Cemetery.

Wife (since 1/15/1837) - Droshida Iv. Artenova (1817-1886), daughter of a tradesman, Barguzin postmaster. Children: Fedor (born dead - 12.6.1838), Mikhail (28. 7.1839-22.12.1879), Ivan (21.12.1840-27.3.1842) and Justina (Ustinya, b. 6.3. 1843) in the marriage of Kosovo. According to the most humble report, Mr. A. F. Orlova Yu. K. Glinka was allowed to take in the upbringing of the young children Mikhail and Justin, who remained after the death of her brother, so that they were not called by their father's surname, but by the Vasilievs - 04/08/1847. Mikhail, under this surname, was assigned to the Larinsky Gymnasium - 1850, after graduating from it he entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University - 1855, in 1863 ensign of the Tsarskoye Selo Rifle Battalion. According to the amnesty manifesto on 26/8/1856, the children were granted the rights of the nobility and the father's surname was returned. Kuchelbecker's widow lived in Irkutsk, receiving an allowance of 114 rubles from the treasury. 28 kop. silver per year, at the request of Gen.-lips. Vost. Siberia M. S. Korsakov and the official for special assignments under him A. Makarov, since 1863, she was also given an allowance from the Literary Fund for 180 rubles. in year. In Sept. In 1879, she left for Kazan, and then to St. Petersburg, after the death of her son, she filed a petition for the restoration of the previous pension, which was paid to her before leaving Siberia, the petition was granted - 24/6/1881. At her funeral issued at the request of Prince. M. S. Volkonsky, son of the Decembrist, 150 rubles. - 19.5.1886. Sisters: Justina (July 12, 1784-July 15, 1871), married to G. A. Glinka, brother of the Decembrist V. A. Glinka (see); Julia (c. 1789-after 1845), class lady of the Catherine Institute; brother: Michael (see).

VD, II, 133-199; TsGAOR, f. 109, 1 exp., 1826, file 61, part 9, 52; 1828, d. 255.

Kuchelbecker, Wilhelm Karlovich

poet, comrade at Pushkin Lyceum; genus. June 10, 1797, in Gatchina; † Aug 11 1846, in Tobolsk, exiled for participating in the riot of December 14. 1825

(Polovtsov)

Kuchelbecker, Wilhelm Karlovich

Russian poet from Russified Germans, small estate nobles. He studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum with Pushkin. Later, he became close friends with Griboyedov.

Having left the secretary of the chief chamberlain Naryshkin abroad, he read lectures in Paris in 1821 on Russian literature, which were discontinued due to their "freedom" at the request of the Russian embassy. Poems began to write and print even at the Lyceum bench [since 1815]. In 1824-1825, together with V. F. Odoevsky, he published the almanac Mnemosyne. Two weeks before December 14, 1825, Ryleev was introduced to the Northern Island. He was on the Senate Square with the rebels, he attempted on the king's brother. Undertook an escape abroad, but was identified and arrested in Warsaw. He spent ten years in prison in fortresses, then was exiled to a settlement in Siberia, where he became blind and died of consumption.

The high civic spirit and nationalist tendencies characteristic of some Decembrist circles compel K. - at first a student of Zhukovsky and a representative of the "Germanic trend" in poetry - to speak in the early 20s. with the demand to "throw off the German diatribe chains." K. puts forward the slogan "high art"; from the "Karamzinists" - Pushkin and his friends - goes to the classics - "to the squad of the Slavs", defining his position as a "romanticist in classicism." The cult of Germany and Zhukovsky is replaced in K. by the cult of Derzhavin. In contrast to the main lyrical genre of the era - the "delicate, colorless" elegy - K. calls for the revival of the "high" ode (the article "On the direction of our poetry, especially lyric poetry, in the last decade", "Mnemosyne", part 2), "artificially he opposes the "barbarian", but "rich and powerful" "Slavic-Russian" language of the classics to the skinny, Europeanized "jargon" of the Karamzinists; to the heroes of Byronic poems, "weak, obsolete for everything grumps" - carriers of "strength" and "glory", heroes of tragedy. In his "Argives" K. gave an example of a high, "civilian" tragedy, politically aimed at combating the "tyrant". Literary activity K. had mainly theoretical significance. His artistic practice invariably, starting from the lyceum, served as a target for ridicule, not always fair: some of K.’s “attempts” entered literature (for example, he was the first to use the white iambic pentameter in tragedy, with which Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov” was written, etc.). Of undoubted interest is the diary of K., in which, in the fair expression of the latest researcher, "the literary atmosphere of the 20s is conserved." The unlucky fate of K., created according to the apt observation of Baratynsky "for the love of glory and for misfortune," served for Yu.

Bibliography: I. Shakespeare's spirits, Dramatic joke, St. Petersburg, 1825; Found a scythe on a stone, Comedy, 1839; Sobr. verse. Decembrists, ed. Fomina, vol. II, M., 1907; Complete collection. verse., M., 1908 (ed. Far from complete and unsatisfactory textually); Izhorsky, Mystery, M., 1908 (1st ed., St. Petersburg, 1835); Review of Russian Literature, Sat. "Literary portfolios", L., 1923; Poets-Decembrists, Sat. ed. Yu. N. Verkhovsky, Guise, M. - L., 1926; Diary, Foreword by Yu. N. Tynyanov, ed., Introduction. and approx. V. N. Orlov and S. I. Khmelnitsky, "Surf", L., 1929.

II. Kotlyarevsky N., Literary activity of the Decembrists, I, V.K. Kuchelbeker, "Russian wealth", 1901, Nos. 3 and 4; Pozanov I. N., Kyuchelbeker - Lensky, "Krasnaya Niva", 1926, No. 6; Tynyanov Yu. N., Archaists and innovators, "Surf", L., 1929 (Art. "Archaists and Pushkin" and " Argives, the unpublished tragedy of Küchelbecker").

III. Chentsov N. M., Revolt of the Decembrists, Bibliography, edited by N. K. Piksanov, Guise, M. - L., 1929.

D. Good.

(Lit. Enz.)

Kuchelbecker, Wilhelm Karlovich

Prominent Russian. poet, translator, critic, public figure, better known prod. other genres. Genus. in St. Petersburg, the son of a Russified German, graduated from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, where he became close friends with A. Pushkin and A. Delvig, worked in the College of Foreign. affairs and taught Russian. and lat. lang. in a boarding house at Ped. in-those, served as an official for special assignments under General A.P. Yermolov, traveled to Germany and Italy. Early began to write, becoming one of the brightest poets of Pushkin's circle. An active participant in the Decembrist uprising, K. fled to Warsaw after its defeat, but was detained there, tried and sentenced to death; subsequently the sentence was commuted to imprisonment and exile to Siberia. Mn. prod. K. saw the light only in the 20th century.

Poetry K. imbued with tyrannical motives, faith in victory reason and justice; the same sentiments, expressed directly or allegorically, can be found in the journalistic op. - "European Letters" (1820 ); entered on Sat. "Decembrists" (1975 ); in this production the author, as it were, looks at the modern to him Europe through the eyes of an American of the 24th century. The satirical sketch "Land of the Headless" (1824) can be regarded as the first draft of Lit. dystopia in Russia: a hero who flew in, like a hero E.Po, in a hot air balloon moon, discovers there the country of Akefalia (i.e. Headless) with the capital Acardion (i.e. Heartless), where morals unacceptable to the author and grew up reign. reality.

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