Dmitry Konstantinovich Girs (russian: Дми́трий Константи́нович Гирс; (1836, in

Taganrog Taganrog ( rus, Таганрог, p=təɡɐnˈrok) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: History of Taganrog Th ...

– , in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

writer. Dmitry Girs was born in

, where his father was chief of quarantine. Girs’s ancestors were of Swedish origin. His most notable relative was his cousin Nikolai Karlovich Girs, foreign minister in 1882-1894. In 1843, his family moved to

, where he studied in a military school, graduated from the engineer college, and then served as a field engineer. In 1868 he had to leave the city as punishment for his speech at the funeral ceremony of Dmitri Pisarev. Girs’s first writings were published in 1862 in ''

The Russian Messenger The ''Russian Messenger'' or ''Russian Herald'' (russian: Ру́сский ве́стник ''Russkiy Vestnik'', Pre-reform Russian: Русскій Вѣстникъ ''Russkiy Vestnik'') has been the title of three notable magazines published in ...

'' under the pen-name Konstantinov. In 1868 he published the beginning of his novel ''Staraia i novaia Rossia'' (The Old and New Russia) in ''

Otechestvennye zapiski ''Otechestvennye Zapiski'' ( rus, Отечественные записки, p=ɐˈtʲetɕɪstvʲɪnːɨjɪ zɐˈpʲiskʲɪ, variously translated as "Annals of the Fatherland", "Patriotic Notes", "Notes of the Fatherland", etc.) was a Russian lite ...

'' (Homeland Notes). Although the novel aroused great expectations, it was never finished. Other works by Girs are ''Na krayu propasti'' (On the edge of the abyss) in ''Delo'' (The deed), 1870; ''Kaliforniiskiy rudnik'' (The California mine) in ''Otechestvennye zapiski'', 1872; ''Dnevnik notarialnogo pistsa'' (The diary of a notary scribe), ''Ibid''., 1883; ''Avdotya-dvumuzhnitsa'' (Avdotya the bigamist) in ''Russkaya mysl (Russian Thought), 1884. In 1876 Girs worked in

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

as a military reporter for '' Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti'' (The St. Petersburg Gazette) and in 1877 for ''Severnyi vestnik'' (The Northern Bulletin). In 1878-1880 Girs published his own newspaper, called ''Russkaya pravda'' (Russian Truth), in which he wrote

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of french: feuillet, the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art critici ...

s under the pen-name Dobro-Glagol. The paper was respected but never enjoyed great success; it incurred administrative penalties and was suspended from publishing many times. Girs’s works ''Zapiski voiennogo'' (Notes of a military man) and ''Kaliforniiskiy rudnik'' were published in a single volume (St. Petersburg, 1872).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Girs, Dmitry 1836 births 1886 deaths Writers from Taganrog People from Yekaterinoslav Governorate People from the Russian Empire of Swedish descent