Count Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov (russian: граф Дми́трий Ива́нович Хвосто́в, – ), was a Russian poet, representing the late period of
classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...
in
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...
.
Count Khvostov, as he was widely known, was an exceedingly prolific author of poems, fables, epigrams, etc., invariably archaic and pompous, making him an easy target for humourists and fellow poets (
Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
among them) who ridiculed him relentlessly. In modern times much has been done to separate the comical myth from Khvostov's real legacy (with some fake 'Khvostovism' exposed) and give credit to an extraordinary poetry enthusiast (who was also an avid literary researcher and archivist), but the stereotype prevails and the name of Count Khvostov remains synonymous in Russia with wanton
graphomania
Graphomania (from grc, γρᾰ́φειν, , ; and , , ), also known as scribomania, is an obsessive impulse to write. When used in a specific psychiatric context, it labels a morbid mental condition which results in writing rambling and confuse ...
and self-important pomposity.
Biography
Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov was born in
1757
Events
January–March
* January 2 – Seven Years' War: The British Army, under the command of Robert Clive, captures Calcutta, India.
* January 5 – Robert-François Damiens makes an unsuccessful assassination attempt ...
in Saint Petersburg, into a respected family of Russian aristocrats, the origins of which can be traced back to the 13th century. He received a fine education at home, studied in a private boarding-school, and then at
Moscow University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
. In 1772 Khvostov joined the prestigious
Preobrazhensky regiment
The Preobrazhensky Life-Guards Regiment (russian: Преображенский лейб-гвардии полк, ''Preobrazhensky leyb-gvardii polk'') was a regiment of the Imperial Guard of the Imperial Russian Army from 1683 to 1917.
The Pr ...
(where he, admittedly, "rarely mounted a horse, save
Pegasus
Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...
"). After retirement in 1779 Khvostov served as an official in the
Russian Senate
The Federation Council (russian: Сове́т Федера́ции – ''Soviet Federatsii'', common abbreviation: Совфед – ''Sovfed''), or Senate (officially, starting from July 1, 2020) ( ru , Сенат , translit = Senat), is th ...
2nd department, where he later translated ''
The Study on Finance'' by the French Finance minister
Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker (; 30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804) was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI. He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent. Necker was a constitutional monarchi ...
, for Prince Alexander Vyazemsky. In 1789 Khvostov married Princess A. I. Gorchakova,
Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov (russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Суво́ров, Aleksándr Vasíl'yevich Suvórov; or 1730) was a Russian general in service of the Russian Empire. He was Count of Rymnik, Count of the Holy ...
's niece, and it was Suvorov, first a mentor, then a close friend and confidante, who in 1799 asked the
King of Sardinia
The following is a list of rulers of Sardinia, in particular, of the monarchs of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica from 1323 and then of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1479 to 1861.
Early history
Owing to the absence of written sources, little ...
to grant the title of Count to his relative who three years later received official permission to use it and became Count Khvostov.
He worked as a secretary in the Senate, then (from 1799) in the
Synod
A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word ''wikt:synod, synod'' comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin ...
. In 1807 he became a Senator, and in 1818 a State Councillor. In 1831 Count Khvostov retired, with the reputation of a perfectly honest, incorruptible bureaucrat and a very modest, good-humoured, likeable person. As many people who knew Khvostov attested, he had but one vice, his abnormal passion for writing (and, what was more serious, publishing) his own poetry which, in the end, proved to be his undoing. Suvorov himself, according to legend, on his deathbed implored his friend to stop writing, but this last wish of the great man remained unfulfilled.
Literary career
Young Dmitry Khvostov grew up in a literary environment: relatives such as
Alexander Sumarokov
Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (russian: Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Сумаро́ков; , Moscow – , Moscow) was a Russian poet and playwright who single-handedly created classical theatre in Russia, thus assisting Mikhail Lomonos ...
,
Vasily Maykov
Vasily Ivanovich Maykov (Василий Иванович Майков, 1728, Yaroslavl, Russian Empire, - 28 June 1778, Moscow, Russian Empire) — was a Russian poet, fabulist, playwright and translator, an exponent of the mock-heroic poetry ge ...
and
Alexander Karin were often guests at his parents's home in Saint Petersburg. In 1777 Dmitry Khvostov debuted with a comedy play called ''A Credulous One''; it was staged at the Court theater. From the very beginning till the end Khvostov was a strict follower and promoter of classicism.
Jean Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...
's ''
Andromaque
''Andromaque'' is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. It was first performed on 17 November 1667 before the court of Louis XIV in the Louvre in the private chambers of the Queen, Marie Thér ...
'' (1794) and
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (; 1 November 1636 – 13 March 1711), often known simply as Boileau (, ), was a French poet and critic. He did much to reform the prevailing form of French poetry, in the same way that Blaise Pascal did to reform the ...
's ''
L'Art poétique'' translated by Khvostov (the latter under the title of ''The Science of Verse-making'', in 1808) went through several editions. In 1791 Khvostov was elected a member of the
Russian Academy
The Russian Academy or Imperial Russian Academy (russian: Академия Российская, Императорская Российская академия) was established in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1783 by Empress Catherine II of Russia ...
. From the formation of the
Colloquy of Lovers of the Russian Word in 1811 Khvostov became one of its most active members.
Khvostov was passionately in love with poetry which for sixty years remained his main interest in life. "I love to write verse and see it printed": this self-proclaimed credo he even used as an epigraph for the 2nd edition of the ''Complete Khvostov'' collection (1817–1818). Never doubting his poetic gift, Khvostov produced vast amounts of poetry;
ode
An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...
s,
epitaph
An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
s,
elegies
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
,
madrigal
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number o ...
s,
epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...
s, etc., which were generally seen as banal, wordy, extravagantly pompous, rich with unnecessary
allegories
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
and
inversions. Quintessential classicism with its full set of clichés, Khvostov's poems became an easy target for parodists.
![Hvostov](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Hvostov.jpg)
Since publishers avoided Khvostov with his ever-growing bulk of produce, he invested money in the business of self-publishing. The ''Complete Khvostov'' went through three editions. Before publishing the next edition, the author bought all the unsold copies of the previous one and spread them to all quarters. He sent thousands of books (along with statues and busts of his own) to Russian and European universities, academies, schools, cadet headquarters, scientists and statesmen. Each time, starting out in a coach from Saint Petersburg to his
Novgorod
Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...
skaya
gubernia
A governorate, gubernia, province, or government ( rus, губе́рния, p=ɡʊˈbʲɛrnʲɪjə, also romanized ; uk, губернія, huberniia), was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire. After the empir ...
estate, he took bunches of his own books along with him, leaving copies at every postal station for anyone who'd care to read them.
In 1802 ''Select Fables from the Best of Russian Verse'' came out and administered the fatal blow to Khvostov's reputation. His characters did the most improbable things: a dove "gnawed himself out of the net" after being entangled in "Two Doves", an ass climbed a rowan-tree ("An Ass and a Rowan-tree") and a crow dropped a piece of cheese from its 'jaws' ("A Crow and a Cheese"). Equally bizarre were the author's footnotes and commentaries, of which there were many. The cheese incident has been explained thus: "Some criticized the use of the word 'jaws' for it can relate only to beasts, not birds. This author is well aware that a bird's mouth is called a 'beak', but he chose to find for it an allegoric substitute because a crow here is a symbol of a man, and of a man one might easily say: 'He gaped and his jaw dropped'; see the Russian Academy dictionary".
Count Khvostov's ''Fables'' became very popular, for all the wrong reasons. Members of the
Arzamas Society
The Arzamas Society (russian: "Арзамас") was a literary society in Saint Petersburg in 1815-1818. The society received its name after a humorous work by a Russian statesman Dmitry Bludov called ''A Vision at the Inn at Arzamas, Published ...
kept the book on their table to amuse themselves from time to time, as
Pyotr Vyazemsky
Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky ( rus, Пëтр Андре́евич Вя́земский, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐnˈdrʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈvʲæzʲɪmskʲɪj; 23 July 1792 – 22 November 1878) was a Russian Imperial poet, a leading personality of t ...
remembered.
Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (russian: Василий Андреевич Жуковский, Vasiliy Andreyevich Zhukovskiy; – ) was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19 ...
devoted the whole of his Arzamas inception speech to Khvostov's ''Fables''. Pyotr Vyazemsky, Vasily Zhukovsky,
Anton Delvig
Baron Anton Antonovich Delvig (russian: Анто́н Анто́нович Де́львигIn Delvig's day, his name was written Антонъ Антоновичъ Дельвигъ., Antón Antónovich Délʹvig, ɐnˈton ɐnˈtonəvʲɪtɕ ˈdelʲv ...
,
Ivan Dmitriev
Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev ( rus, Ива́н Ива́нович Дми́триев, p=ɪˈvan ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈdmʲitrʲɪjɪf, a=Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriyev.ru.vorb.oga; – ) was a Russian statesman and poet associated with the sentimentalist ...
,
Alexander Voeykov,
Nikolay Yazykov
Nikolay Mikhailovich Yazykov (russian: Никола́й Миха́йлович Язы́ков, March 4, 1803, Simbirsk, Russian Empire – December 26, 1846, Moscow, Russian Empire) was a Russian poet and Slavophile who in the 1820s rivalled Alexa ...
and
Alexander Izmaylov
Alexander Efimovich Izmaylov (Алекса′ндр Ефи′мович Изма′йлов, 25 April 1779, Vladimir Governorate, Russian Empire, — 28 January 1831, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian fabulist, poet, novelist, publi ...
all wrote epigrams on Khvostov. In a satire called ''A Singer in a Colloquy''
Konstantin Batyushkov
Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov ( rus, Константи́н Никола́евич Ба́тюшков, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈbatʲʊʂkəf, a=Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov.ru.vorb.oga; ) was a Russian poet, e ...
presented Khvostov as the
cossack
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
ataman
Ataman (variants: ''otaman'', ''wataman'', ''vataman''; Russian: атаман, uk, отаман) was a title of Cossack and haidamak leaders of various kinds. In the Russian Empire, the term was the official title of the supreme military comman ...
Platov, "a reader's tyrant" whose poetry was "his drum, unbearable for the ears." Pushkin in his "Ode to His Highness Count Dm. Iv. Khvostov" made fun of the latter's tendency to produce countless footnotes (which made the commentary pages longer than the verses themselves), warning
Wilhelm Küchelbecker
Wilhelm Ludwig von Küchelbecker ( rus, Вильге́льм Ка́рлович Кюхельбе́кер, p=kʲʉxʲɪlʲˈbʲekʲɪr, tr. ; in St. Petersburg – in Tobolsk) was a Russian Romantic poet and Decembrist revolutionary of Ger ...
and
Kondraty Ryleyev
Kondraty Fyodorovich Ryleyev, also spelled Kondraty Feodorovich Ryleev (, September 29 (September 18 Julian calendar, O.S.), 1795 – July 25 (July 13 Julian calendar, O.S.), 1826) was a Russians, Russian poet, publisher, and a leader of the D ...
against falling into the same ode-ish stylistic trap.
Khvostov, being an extraordinarily mild and good-humoured man, endured this barrage of ridicule stoically. Giving credit to his love of literature, the sympathetic
Nikolay Karamzin
Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin (russian: Николай Михайлович Карамзин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ kərɐmˈzʲin; ) was a Russian Imperial historian, romantic writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for ...
wrote to Dmitriev in 1824: "Count Khvostov with his unbroken passion for verse-making is very touching to me. Here is love that is worthy of a talent. He's got none, but he'd deserve having it." Konstantin Batyushkov wrote of Khvostov: "Generations will come and go, and simply for being so infamous, he will become quite famous."
[The Works of K. N. Batyushkov. Saint Petersburg, 1887. Vol. 3, p. 215]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khvostov, Dmitry Ivanovich
1757 births
1835 deaths
Russian male poets
Russian dramatists and playwrights
Russian male dramatists and playwrights
Members of the Russian Academy
Writers from Saint Petersburg
Most Holy Synod
Dmitry
Dmitri (russian: Дми́трий); Church Slavic form: Dimitry or Dimitri (); ancient Russian forms: D'mitriy or Dmitr ( or ) is a male given name common in Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christian culture, the Russian version of Greek language, Greek De ...