Wilhelm Küchelbecker short biography. The meaning of küchelbecker wilhelm karlovich in a brief biographical encyclopedia

Wilhelm Küchelbecker
Wilhelm Kuchelbecker
1820s
Aliases: Kyukhlya
Date of birth: 10 (21) June 1797
Place of birth: St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg province, Russian Empire
Date of death: 11 (23) August 1846
Place of death: Tobolsk, Tobolsk district, Tobolsk province, Russian Empire
Occupation: poet, teacher, Decembrist

Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker (June 10 (21), 1797, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire - August 11 (23), 1846, Tobolsk, Russian Empire) - Russian poet, writer and public figure, friend and classmate of Pushkin at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, collegiate assessor, Decembrist.

A family
Wilhelm Küchelbecker was born on June 10 (21) in St. Petersburg, in a family of Russified German noblemen.
Father - State Councilor Karl Küchelbecker (December 28, 1748 - March 6, 1809), Saxon nobleman, agronomist, first director of Pavlovsk (1781-1789).
Mother - Yustina Yakovlevna Lohmen (March 20, 1757 - March 26, 1841).
The younger brother is Mikhail Karlovich Kuchelbecker.
The elder sister is Ustinya Karlovna Glinka (1786-1871).
Sister - Uliana (Julia) Karlovna Kyuchelbeker (02/1/1795 - 07/09/1869), because of her brother, she was fired from the Catherine Institute, where she was a class lady.

Education
He spent his childhood in Livonia, on the banks of the Avenorm River. In 1808 he entered a private boarding school in the city of Verro (Estland), which he graduated with a silver medal. In 1811, on the recommendation of his relative, Minister of War Barclay de Tolly, he was admitted to the Imperial Lyceum of Tsarskoye Selo (lyceum nicknames are “Kukhlya”, “Gezel”, “Bekerkyuchel”) as a first-year pupil. Comrade A.S. Pushkin at the Lyceum. He showed an early interest in poetry and began to publish in 1815 in the magazines Amphion and Son of the Fatherland. He graduated from the Lyceum in 1817 with the rank of IX class. At the graduation act on June 9, 1817, he was awarded a silver medal for success and scholarship.

Service
After graduating from the Lyceum in 1817, he was enrolled together with A.S. Pushkin in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. From 1817 to 1820 he taught Russian and Latin at the Noble Boarding School at the Main Pedagogical Institute, where among his students were Mikhail Glinka and the younger brother of A. S. Pushkin, Lev. On August 9, 1820, he retired. On September 8, he went abroad as secretary of the chief chamberlain A. L. Naryshkin. Traveled to Germany and Southern France. In March 1821 he arrived in Paris, where he gave public lectures on the Slavic language and Russian literature in the anti-monarchist society "Athene". The lectures were discontinued due to their "freedom" at the request of the Russian embassy. Kuchelbecker returned to Russia.

From the end of 1821 until May 1822, he served as an official for special assignments with the rank of collegiate assessor under General Yermolov in the Caucasus, where he met Griboyedov. The similarity of characters and destinies soon brought the writers together - a good memory of friendship with Griboyedov, which quickly turned into admiration, Kuchelbecker carried through his whole life.
After a duel with N. N. Pokhvisnev (a distant relative of Yermolov), he was forced to leave the service and return to Russia.

Retired
After his resignation, he lived for a year on his sister's estate in the Smolensk province. July 30, 1823 moved to Moscow. He taught at the women's pension Kistera, gave private lessons.
In April 1825 he moved to St. Petersburg. He lived with his brother Mikhail Karlovich, and from October 1825 with Prince A. I. Odoevsky.

Decembrist
Since 1817, a member of the secret pre-Decembrist organization "Holy Artel". Two weeks before the uprising on December 14, 1825, Ryleev was introduced to the Northern Society. He was on Senate Square with the rebels, attempted on the emperor's brother (Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich), tried to shoot at the generals twice, but both times the gun misfired. After the defeat of the rebels, he made an escape abroad, but was identified and arrested on January 19, 1826, at the entrance to the suburbs of Warsaw, by non-commissioned officer Grigoriev. With him was arrested his serf servant Semyon Balashov, who was chained in iron, removed from him on April 30, 1826.

January 25 delivered to St. Petersburg in shackles. He was placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress on January 26, 1826, in No. 12 of the Alekseevsky ravelin.
Memorial table in memory of Wilhelm Küchelbecker in the former Dinaburg fortress
Imprisonment

Convicted of the 1st category on July 10, 1826. Sentenced to hard labor for 20 years. On July 27, 1826 he was transferred to the Kexholm fortress. Signs: height 2 arshins 9 4/8 inches, "white in face, clean, black in hair, brown eyes, oblong nose with a hump"

On August 22, 1826, the term of hard labor was reduced to 15 years. On April 30, 1827 he was transferred to the Shlisselburg Fortress. On October 12, 1827, by decree of the emperor, instead of Siberia, he was sent to prison companies at the Dinaburg fortress (now in Daugavpils, Latvia). On April 15, 1831, Küchelbecker was sent to Reval via Riga. From Reval on October 7, 1831 he was sent to Sveaborg, where he arrived on October 14, 1831.

In Barguzin
Arrived in Barguzin on January 20, 1836. His younger brother, Kuchelbeker, Mikhail Karlovich, already lived in Barguzin. The Kuchelbeker brothers started a large farm, grew crops new to Siberia. Mikhail Karlovich opened a free school in his house for local residents. According to the assumptions of V. B. Bakhaev, Wilhelm Karlovich taught at this school.

He continued to engage in literary activities: he wrote poems, poems, elegies, critical articles, translated from European and ancient languages, completed the "Diary", the ethnographic essay "Inhabitants of Transbaikalia and Zakamenye", the poem "Yuri and Xenia", the historical drama "The Fall of the House of Shuisky" , the novel "The Last Column" and others. In a letter to Pushkin, he reported interesting observations about the Tungus.

On January 15, 1837, he married the daughter of the Barguzin postmaster Drosida Ivanovna Artenova (1817-1886).

Children: Fedor (born dead - 6/12/1838), Mikhail (7/28/1839 - 12/22/1879), Ivan (12/21/1840 - 3/27/1842) and Justina (Ustinya, born 6/3/1843) in the marriage of Kosovo.

According to the most humble report, Mr. A.F. Orlova Yu.K. On April 8, 1847, Glinka was allowed to take in her young children, Mikhail and Justin, who remained after the death of her brother, to be raised, so that they would not be called by their father's surname, but by the Vasilievs. In 1850, under this surname, Mikhail was assigned to the Larinsky gymnasium, after graduating from it he entered the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg University in 1855, and in 1863 he was ensign of the Tsarskoye Selo rifle battalion. According to the amnesty manifesto on August 26, 1856, the children were granted the rights of the nobility and the father's surname was returned.

Aksha fortress
At his own request, he was transferred to the Aksha fortress. Left Barguzin in January 1840. In Aksha he gave private lessons. In 1844 he received permission to move to the village of Smolino in the Kurgan district of the Tobolsk province. September 2, 1844 left Aksha.
Mound

House-Museum of V. K. Kuchelbeker in Kurgan
He lived in Kurgan since March 1845, where he lost his sight. VC. Kuchelbecker first lived with N.P. Richter, teacher of the Russian language at the Kurgan district school. Judging by the diary of Küchelbecker, the family moved to their house on September 21, 1845, and the Decembrist himself was “sick in addition”, although the very next day he received the guest of the exiled Pole P.M. Vozhzhinsky. Before the arrival of the Küchelbecker family, the house belonged to the exiled Poles Klechkovsky, who moved to the vacated house of A.E. Rosen. Thanks to the local history research of Boris Nikolaevich Karsonov, it was possible to prove with accuracy: Kuchelbeker lived in Kurgan itself. Although in letters to high dignitaries in the capital, Küchelbecker claimed that he lives in Smolino. In his historical essay, Boris Karsonov writes: “Wilhelm liked his house: four large rooms and two small ones in the middle. For the first time in Siberian exile, he had a separate office. True, its decoration was meager, even by Kurgan standards.

Tobolsk
On January 28, 1846, Kuchelbecker was allowed to go to Tobolsk for treatment. Arrived in Tobolsk on March 7, 1846.
Wilhelm Karlovich died in Tobolsk on August 11 (23) from consumption. He was buried at Zavalnoye Cemetery.
Kuchelbecker's widow lived in Irkutsk, receiving an allowance of 114 rubles from the treasury. 28 kop. silver per year, at the request of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia M.S. Korsakov and A. Makarov, an official for special assignments under him, since 1863 she was also given an allowance from the Literary Fund for 180 rubles. in year. In September 1879, she left for Kazan, and then to St. Petersburg, after the death of her son, filed a petition for the restoration of the previous pension, which was paid to her before leaving Siberia, the petition was granted on June 24, 1881. At her funeral, she was issued at the request of Prince. M.S. Volkonsky, son of a Decembrist, 150 rubles May 19, 1886.
Memory

In honor of V.K. Küchelbecker they were named:

Railway station Kyukhelbekerskaya in the village of Yanchukan on the Baikal-Amur Mainline.
Kuchelbeker Street in Kurgan (Smolino microdistrict)

Addresses
In St. Petersburg

1817-1819 - the mezzanine of the Noble Boarding School at the Main Pedagogical Institute - Fontanka River Embankment, 164;
summer of 1825 - the apartment of N. I. Grech in the house of A. I. Kosikovsky - Nevsky Prospekt, 15;
10. - 12.14.1825 - A. I. Odoevsky's apartment in Bulatov's apartment building - St. Isaac's Square, 7.

In Kurgan
st. R. Luxembourg, 25 in the village of Smolino
House-Museum of V.K. Kuchelbeker - st. Kuibysheva, 19 (Object of cultural heritage of federal significance)

Literary activity

Since 1815, Kuchelbecker published poems in various journals, from 1823 to 1825 he published the almanac "Mnemosyne" with A. S. Griboedov and V. F. Odoevsky. In the early 1920s he actively opposed sentimentalism. The following works belong to his pen: the tragedy "The Argives" (1822-1825), "The Death of Byron" (M. 1824), "Shakespeare's Spirits" (1825), "Izhora" (1825), excerpts from the diary and the poem "Eternal Jew" .

Kuchelbecker was an employee of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature from November 10, 1819, and a full member of the society from January 3, 1820.

Compositions:

"Death of Byron", 1824;
"Shadow of Ryleev", 1827),
"Argives", 1822-1825,
"Prokofy Lyapunov", 1834,
"Izhora" (publ. 1835, 1841, 1939),
"Eternal Jew", (publ. 1878),
"The Last Column", a novel (1832-1843; published in 1937)
"Diary" (written in custody, published in Leningrad in 1929), see also: Diary of V.K. Kuchelbecker. // Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 13. - No. 8. - S. 490-531; T. 14. - No. 9. - S. 75-91.
Collection of poems of the Decembrists. - Leipzig, 1862. - T. 2;
Selected works: In 2 volumes - M., 1939;
Selected works: In 2 volumes - M.; L., 1967;

The poem "The fate of Russian poets"

Bitter is the fate of the poets of all tribes;
Hardest of all fate executes Russia;
For glory and Ryleev was born;
But the young man was in love with freedom ...
The noose pulled the impudent neckline.

He is not alone; others follow him
Beautiful seduced by a dream,
Regret the fateful year ...
God gave fire to their heart, light to their mind,
Yes! feelings in them are enthusiastic and ardent, -
Well? they are thrown into a black prison,
Frost the hopeless exile...

Or disease brings night and darkness
Into the eyes of inspired seers;
Or the hand of contemptible amiable
Sends a bullet to their sacred brow;

Or the riot will raise the deaf mob,
And the black will tear it apart,
Whose shining with thunderbolts flight
Radiance would pour over his native country.

It cannot be said that Wilhelm Küchelbecker reached special heights in art or social activities, but his name has firmly entered the national history and Russian literature. Fate gave the talented pupil of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum a meeting with the greatest people of his time: Pushkin, Griboyedov, Pushchin, Odoevsky- but the quick-tempered nature did not allow him to find a place in life.

The ugly duckling of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum

In the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Kuchelbeker, because of his awkwardness, daydreaming and deafness in his left ear, was the subject of endless ridicule - they also brought him to a suicide attempt. One day, a teenager tried to drown himself in a pond, from which his comrades pulled him out, who immediately drew a caricature of the unfortunate man in a local magazine.

The quick-tempered Kyukhlyu, as his lyceum friends called him, was saved by one thing - he was distinguished by great gentleness, and with his knowledge and perseverance he knew how to win over people.

But Kühlya was still fond of writings, because in those years versification among lyceum students was the most popular occupation.

Wilhelm, read your poems
For me to fall asleep sooner...

So in "Feasting Students" Alexander Pushkin described the poetic talent of Kuchelbecker. The clumsy lyceum student was a favorite hero of the lyceum epigrams, messages and ironic lines of the “sun of Russian poetry” (because of which Pushkin and Kuchelbecker once met in a duel, but still remained closest comrades).

Reproduction of drawing by schoolgirl Nadia Rusheva "Pushkin reading poetry to Delvig and Kuchelbecker". Photo: RIA Novosti

Talented Loser

In 1817, Kuchelbecker graduated from the Lyceum with a silver medal and, along with the same Pushkin, entered the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. From that moment, the wanderings of the future Decembrist began.

A graduate of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum chose to teach Russian literature at the Noble Boarding School at the Main Pedagogical Institute over diplomatic service, but because of an unsuccessful romance, he decided to move away from home. In the position of chief chamberlain of the nobleman Naryshkin, Küchelbecker went to Europe, from where he was forced to return to Russia, as he attracted the attention of the authorities with a “freedom-loving” lecture on Russian literature.

Kuhlya wanted to work in the Ministry of Finance, engage in professorial work in Edinburgh or in the Crimea, get a position as a professor of Russian at Dorpat University, serve in Odessa, publish a magazine - but none of his plans was destined to come true. As a result, a talented lyceum student joined the society of persons who took part in the December uprising.

On December 14, 1825, Kuchelbecker became one of the most active participants in the events on Senate Square. It is known that he shot at the emperor's brother - Prince Mikhail Pavlovich but the gun misfired.

The diary of Wilhelm Kuchelbecker and his books, published anonymously with the assistance of A. S. Pushkin. Museum of the Decembrists in Moscow (closed in 1997). Photo: RIA Novosti / Oleg Lastochkin

"A poet in Russia is more than a poet"

Küchelbecker was lucky enough to quietly leave the Senate Square when it became obvious that the uprising was doomed. However, the unlucky Decembrist with signs “height 2 arshins 9 4/8 inches, white face, clean, black hair, brown eyes, long hooked nose” was quickly found.

In the winter of 1826, a talented lyceum student ended up in the casemates of the main political prison in Russia - the Peter and Paul Fortress. He faced the death penalty, which was commuted to twenty years hard labor. Later, this sentence was mitigated, but, despite the fact that the prisoner Küchelbecker was kept in rather mild conditions (he could write and receive letters, read new books, communicate with the confessor), the poet was deeply unhappy.

However, Küchelbecker remained true to his first poetic experiments: above all, the philosopher and romantic put the purpose of the poet. In one of his last works, entitled "The Fate of Russian Poets", the dying, sick Decembrist wrote:

Bitter is the fate of the poets of all tribes;
Hardest of all fate executes Russia:
For glory and Ryleev was born;
But the young man was in love with freedom...
The noose pulled the impudent neckline.

The grave of the Decembrist V. K. Kuchelbeker in Tobolsk Photo: RIA Novosti / Sergey Vetrov

Kuchelbecker Wilhelm Karlovich (1797-1846), writer, Decembrist.

Born June 21, 1797 in St. Petersburg. He came from a noble family of Russified Germans. He graduated from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (1817), where he began his friendship with A. S. Pushkin and A. A. Delvig.

Then he served in the College of Foreign Affairs, taught Russian and Latin. In 1820-1821. traveled in Europe; He gave public lectures in Paris on Russian literature, and at the same time spoke about the need for political reforms in Russia. The speeches were interrupted by order of the Russian embassy.

In 1822, Kuchelbecker served in the Caucasus as an official for special assignments under General A.P. Yermolov. In November 1825, he was accepted by K. F. Ryleev into the secret Northern Society. During the uprising on December 14, 1825 in St. Petersburg, Kuchelbecker fired at Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, lined up soldiers for a counterattack.

After the failure of the uprising, he tried to flee abroad, but was arrested in Warsaw and sentenced to death, which was then replaced by hard labor in the Dinaburg fortress.

From 1836 he lived in a settlement in Siberia.

Küchelbecker began to publish in 1815. In his early poems, he followed the tradition of elegiac poetry of V. A. Zhukovsky, from the beginning of the 20s. 19th century actively opposed sentimentalism, defending romanticism. He wrote a program article "On the direction of our poetry, especially lyrical, in the last decade" (published in 1824 in the anthology "Mnemosyne", which Wilhelm Karlovich published together with V. F. Odoevsky).

In contrast to the "chamber lyrics", Kuchelbecker creates the tyrannical tragedy "The Argives" (1822-1825), the poems "To Ahates", "To Friends on the Rhine" (both 1821) - works filled with civic pathos.

In captivity and in exile, Kuchelbecker did not change his former ideals (poems "Elegy", 1832; "On the Death of Yakubovich", 1846, etc.), although the motives of loneliness, doom increased in his lyrics ("October 19" , 1838; "The fate of Russian poets", 1845; tragedy "Prokofy Lyapunov", 1834).

The mystical idea of ​​the predestination of a tragic fate was also reflected in the most significant prose work - the story "The Last Column" (not finished).

Great merit in the publication of Küchelbecker's works in the 20th century. belongs to the writer Yu. N. Tynyanov.

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 the Free Society of 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 with 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; 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. Küchelbecker could not become a realist poet, to comprehend the social patterns of the historical process. 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 belong 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.

Kuchelbecker Wilhelm Karlovich

KYUHELBEKER Wilhelm Karlovich was born a poet.

He spent his childhood in Estonia. He received his initial education in a private boarding school in the city of Verro.

In 1811 he entered the Tsarsko-Selo Lyceum, and Delvig and Pushkin became his friends. The patriotic upsurge caused by the war of 1812 had a great influence on him.

In 1815, the first poem by Wilhelm Karlovich appeared - "The Song of the Laplander" appeared in the September book of the magazine "Amphion". Since then, it has been regularly printed on the pages of time-based publications. The freedom-loving moods of Küchelbecker manifested themselves very early. At the Lyceum, he became a member of the Sacred Arte-li, most of whose members then joined the secret society of the Decembrists, the Union of Salvation.

In 1819, he was elected to the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, and at one of its meetings he read the revolutionary poem "Poets", addressed to Delvig, Baratynsky and written in connection with Pushkin's exile.

After graduating from the Lyceum, Wilhelm Karlovich, together with Pushkin and Griboyedov, served in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition, he taught at a boarding school at the Pedagogical Institute.

In 1820 Küchelbecker went abroad and lived in Germany, Italy, and Paris. In Paris, he successfully lectured on Russian literature, met with Benjamin Constant, in Germany - with Goethe, told them about the achievements of the latest Russian literature. In Western Europe, everything reminded Wilhelm Karlovich of revolutionary events (the French Revolution, the Greek uprising, the Piedmontese revolution), of "armed freedom, the struggle of peoples and kings."

In August 1821 he returned to St. Petersburg. Friends helped the young man, who was suspected by the authorities, to enter the service under the “Proconsul of the Caucasus”, General Yermolov.

In October 1821, Kuchelbecker arrived in Tiflis, but already in May 1822 he left the service and returned to Russia. In Moscow, together with V. F. Odoevsky, he began to publish the almanac Mnemosyne (1824-25), in which he strongly advocated the creation of a national literature and opposed passive elegiac romanticism. In the article "On the Direction of Our Poetry, Especially Lyric Poetry, in the Last Decade," Kuchelbecker widely developed his aesthetic principles. He advocated high genres—the great heroic poem, the civic ode, and the tragedy. The poet was dissatisfied with the intimacy, narrowness of elegies and messages, the sophistication and obliteration of the poetic language, the power of small lyrical forms (friendly messages, burimes, charades, madrigals).

In 1825, Wilhelm Karlovich moved to St. Petersburg, where he joined the secret Northern Society. During the December uprising, he acted actively and boldly: he gathered soldiers scattered by shots into the ranks, shot (unsuccessfully) at Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich and General Voinov. After the suppression of the uprising, Kuchelbecker changed into a sheepskin coat and fled from St. Petersburg, but was captured in Warsaw, taken to the capital and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The death penalty to which he was sentenced was replaced by twenty years hard labor, and later this measure was changed: instead of hard labor, the poet spent more than ten years in solitary confinement in various fortresses, and in 1835 he was exiled to Siberia.

A patient with tuberculosis, who lost his sight, he died in Tobolsk.

Until the last days, Küchelbecker found creative forces for literary work. Neither illness, nor a difficult financial situation, nor an oppressed moral state broke him. He wrote poetry, poems, dramatic works, kept a diary, translated Shakespeare's tragedies. Only a tiny fraction of what he wrote during these years was published anonymously during his lifetime, mainly due to the efforts of Pushkin.

The work of Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker is peculiar and contradictory: it combined the civil traditions of Russian classicism with the principles of Decembrist romanticism.

The poetic path of Kuchelbecker began with poems written in imitation of Zhukovsky. His early works are sustained in a sentimental but elegiac spirit, they have strong motifs of loneliness, dull elegiacism and gloomy hopelessness. However, gradually the poet is freed from them and is increasingly imbued with civil and freedom-loving moods. Friendship is sung in his poetry as a union of people who have dedicated themselves to the lofty ideas of freedom, brotherhood and justice. The lyrical hero of the poet is a fighter against tyranny, ready to accept death, but boldly rush into battle.

The favorite theme of Küchelbecker's work is the theme of poetic service. The poet appears in his lyrics as a singer-prophet, a singer-citizen, a fighter for the people's good. And although he feels the inevitability and inevitability of hard trials and sacrifices, he does not shy away from the struggle, but, on the contrary, boldly goes towards it. In this act, his civic prowess is sharply emphasized. At the same time, the poet appears in Kuchelbecker's poems as a teacher of people, able to foresee and predict the future.

The lyrics of Wilhelm Karlovich had certain weaknesses. The range of topics and ideas of his lyrical works was limited and rather monotonous. The complex and unexplained internal contradictions of Russian life and the consciousness of a person contemporary to the Decembrist poet remained outside the lyrics, which were understood by him and his like-minded friends in a romantically abstract way.

The main genre of Kuchelbecker's lyrics is a civil ode, close in form to the odes of classicism. In this genre, the poet affirmed the Decembrist ideal of a freedom fighter. These are the ode

"Griboedov"

"Ode on the Death of Byron".

Tragedy was another important genre in Küchelbecker's work. In them, with particular sharpness, the contradictory nature of Decembrist romanticism was revealed.

In the early 20s. Kuchelbeker created the tragedy "Argi-Vyane". It was based on an ancient plot, but the content of the tragedy is thoroughly modern. Antique material, in accordance with the political and aesthetic principles of the Decembrists, served only as a screen covering agitation and propaganda goals. The tyrannoborcheskoe orientation of the tragedy is obvious: in the "Argives" cruelty and despotism of the tyrant were denounced, his inevitable death was predicted. A contemporary easily established a connection between the fictional ancient world and Russian reality. At the same time, complex historical and modern problems were solved in a romantic-abstract way: the principle of historicism was ignored, the era was reproduced in a general, typical, and not a specific artistic image. The real details of the ancient world had no serious significance for the author: instead of the word "tyrant", Kuchelbecker used "tsar", and instead of the word "forum" - the old Russian "veche". Deliberately digressing from a specific historical era, the poet fell into rhetoric and declarativeness.

After 1825 the creative forces of the poet did not weaken. Notes of despair, grief, reconciliation begin to sound in his lyrics, but they do not determine its main pathos. Kuchelbeker V. K remained an "unrepentant Decembrist." The reasons for pessimistic moods are in the defeat of the December uprising, in isolation from friends, from real life, the inability to fight again for ideas dear to the poet. The hero of Kuchelbecker's post-December lyrics is a persistent person who has not lost faith in the validity of his ideological convictions,

"My Destiny", (1834),

In the poem "The Fate of Russian Poets" (1845), Kuchelbecker again returns to the theme of poetic ministry, sings of a heroic deed in the name of the ideals of his Decembrist youth.

The lyrics of Wilhelm Karlovich are becoming more diverse in genres and themes. Poems in which Decembrist motifs continue

"Hero and Singer"

"Three Shadows", 1840, published in 1862), are distinguished by energy, precision and conciseness of expression unusual for Küchelbecker. The poet shows a taste for artistic detail, his style becomes clearer and simpler. A strict persecutor of elegy and message, the poet reconsiders his views, turning to lyrical meditation, poetic reflection. The new aesthetic principles also touched on the great forms in the poet's work. Of course, in many respects these were only the first attempts, timid searches, but they found expression in

dramatic tale "Ivan, the merchant's son" (1832-42, published in 1939),

Their appearance was facilitated by translations of Shakespeare's plays. Of particular interest in this sense is the mystery "Izhora" and the tragedy "Prokofy Lyapunov".

In "Izhora" Wilhelm Karlovich portrayed "an extra person", and condemned him. The artistic manner of the mystery, the clear and natural, almost colloquial language testified to the revision of the former poetics.

To an even greater extent, such an attempt was made by Kuchelbecker in the tragedy Prokofy Lyapunov, where for the first time the poet turned to the image of the people. The tragedy of Prokofy Lyapunov, according to the author, consisted in isolation from the people. New aesthetic searches - a consequence of Küchelbecker's ideological evolution - were not embodied in his work with sufficient completeness and certainty. The poet remained a Decembrist in both worldview and aesthetic views, but he caught the spirit of the times, although he was forcibly cut off from Russian life, from the ideological and literary struggle, from Russian literature, which adopted Pushkin's realistic method .

Died -, Tobolsk.