Vasily Petrovich Botkin (; – ) was a Russian essayist, literary, art and music critic, translator and publicist.

Early life

Vasily was born in Moscow, the son of Alexandra Antonovna (Baranova) and Petr Kononovich Botkin, a wealthy tea merchant. His brothers were Sergey Botkin, a well-known physician, and Mikhail Botkin, a painter and art collector. Vasily was a moderate liberal in the 1830s and 40s, associating with members of the circle of Nikolai Stankevich, and with the Westernizers, including

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, s ...

, Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen. Vasily was a man of expensive tastes, a connoisseur of art and music, and a

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

. He travelled widely in Europe, meeting well known figures such as

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

Louis Blanc Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc ( ; ; 29 October 1811 – 6 December 1882) was a French Socialism, socialist politician, journalist and historian. He called for the creation of cooperatives in order to job guarantee, guarantee employment for t ...

and

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

Career

Vasily was the first Russian publicist to acquaint Russian readers with the works of

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Notes of the Fatherland''). He published articles on art exhibitions as well as on

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, E. T. A. Hoffmann and

George Sand Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. Being more renowned than either Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balz ...

. In the field of music he wrote ''Italian and German Music'' (1839), ''On the Aesthetic Significance of the New School of Piano'' (1850), and works on

Italian opera Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous ope ...

. Between 1847 and 1849 he published the essays ''Letters on Spain'' in '' The Contemporary'', which have remained his most popular works. He translated

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...

's '' On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History'' (1841) into Russian. His extensive correspondence with Belinsky,

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referr ...

, and others is of great social interest. Much of his aesthetic and literary theory can be found in his letters, especially those he wrote to

Ivan Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ( ; rus, links=no, Иван Сергеевич ТургеневIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; – ) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poe ...

, and in his essay ''The Poetry of A. A. Fet'', published in 1857 in ''The Contemporary''. Vasily's sister was married to Fet. The

Revolutions of 1848 The revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations, were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespre ...

scared Vasily, and he broke with his liberal associates, becoming more politically conservative as time went by. He also became a more conservative critic, espousing the theory of "art for art's sake" along with Alexander Druzhinin and Pavel Annenkov.

English translations

*''A. A. Fet'', from ''Russian Literature Triquarterly #17'', Ardis Publishers, 1982.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Botkin, Vasily 1812 births 1869 deaths Critics from the Russian Empire Essayists from the Russian Empire Russian male essayists Writers from Moscow 19th-century journalists from the Russian Empire Russian male journalists 19th-century translators from the Russian Empire 19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire 19th-century essayists 20th-century Russian essayists 20th-century Russian male writers Westernizers