Born Apollon Nikolaevich Maykov in Moscow, in a family of hereditary nobles in 1821. Several previous generations of this kind are closely associated with art, this fact eventually influenced his worldview and contributed to the development of creative talents. In 1834, the parents of the future poet moved with their children to St. Petersburg. It is there that Apollon Maikov will receive a legal education that will help him succeed as a civil servant.

Maykov's formation as a writer begins in 1842. Then he publishes his first book, on the basis of which he goes on a trip around the world. Having visited several countries, he returned to St. Petersburg in 1844 and began writing his Ph.D. thesis. The chosen topic (Old Slavic law) will be clearly traced in some of the author's works in the future.

Achievement list

Throughout his life, Apollon Nikolayevich actively builds a career. Having proven himself well while serving in the Ministry of Finance, in 1867 he was appointed State Councilor. Nine years later, he was appointed to the honorary position of senior censor. In 1897, he was approved for the position of acting chairman of the Central Committee of Foreign Censorship.

In parallel with his main employment, he is a member of literary communities, actively writes for newspapers and magazines, and is a member of the commission that organizes public readings in St. Petersburg.

Creation

The early debut of the thirteen-year-old Apollon Nikolaevich was the poem "Eagle", which was published in 1835 in the Library for Reading. However, the first serious publications are considered to be “Picture” and “Dream”, which appeared five years later in the “Odessa Almanac”.

For creative way the change in the political mood of the poet is clearly traced. Liberal views in early work are later replaced by conservative and pan-Slavic ones. For this reason, in the 1860s, the author's work was seriously criticized. The revolutionary democrats did not like this change of heart.

The main theme of creativity are rural and natural motifs, episodes from history native land. These poems are included in school textbooks and anthologies. Some of them were later set to music by such famous composers as P.I. Tchaikovsky and N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov.

In addition to writing poems and poems, he was known for literary translations. translated famous works Goethe, Heine, Mickiewicz. He knew several languages, so he could translate from Greek, Spanish, Serbian and so on. In 1870 he completed the translation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign, which took him four years to complete.

Apollon Nikolaevich's wife was Anna Ivanovna Stemmer, who gave birth to a wife of three sons and one daughter. The poet died on March 20, 1897, after a month-long severe cold. He was buried at the cemetery of the Voskresensky Novodevichy Convent.

Apollon Nikolaevich Maykov was born in Moscow on June 4 (May 23, old style), 1821. Apollo Maykov's father, Nikolai Apollonovich Maykov, was a talented artist who reached the title of academician of painting, and his mother, Evgenia Petrovna, wrote books. The artistic atmosphere of the parental home contributed to the formation of the spiritual interests of the boy, who early began to draw and write poetry. His teacher of literature was the writer I.A. Goncharov. As a twelve-year-old teenager, Maykov was taken to St. Petersburg, where the whole family soon moved.

Almost all family members tried their hand at literature. An idea arose to publish a handwritten journal, which was called simply and beautifully "Snowdrop".

Issues of "Snowdrop" were stitched together and decorated with a massive red cover with gold stamping.

In 1837, A. Maikov entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. Studies in Roman law aroused in him a deep interest in the ancient world, which later manifested itself in his work. Maykov was fluent in several languages, including Latin and ancient Greek.

The debut of A.N. Maikov as a poet took place in 1841. He became a famous poet of his time. Maikov is a painter of the word, the creator of beautiful poems about his native nature. He is the translator of the immortal monument of antiquity "The Tale of Igor's Campaign".

The poet's poems were included in all school anthologies in Russia.

In his declining years, Apollon Nikolaevich acquired in the vicinity of St. Petersburg at the Siverskaya Varshavskaya station railway humble cottage. Here, as noted by his contemporaries, "he found his honor and his place", engaging in charitable activities. Thanks to his efforts and efforts, a church, a school and a library-reading room, bearing the name of the poet, were built in Siverskaya.

Maikov Apollon Nikolaevich (1821-1897), poet.

Graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University. Maykov's first book of poems was published in 1842. Then the poem "Two Fates" (1844) and "Mashenka" (1846), a collection of lyrics "Essays on Rome" (1847), reflecting the impressions of a trip to Italy, were published. .

In 1848-1852. the activity of the poet has noticeably decreased.

The Crimean War, which began in 1853, again awakened him to intense creative activity (the result was the book "1854. Poems").

Poems from the late 50's and 60's. Maikov tried to critically assess the surrounding reality ("Whirlwind", 1856; "He and She", 1857; poem "Dreams", 1856-1858; collection "Neapolitan Album", 1858-1860; poems " Fields”, 1861, “To Friend Ilya Ilyich”, 1863, “On the White Shoal of the Caspian Sea...”, 1863, etc.). In the same years, he translated a lot from modern Greek folk poetry, imbued with the spirit of the struggle for independence.

A sympathetic attitude towards the national liberation movement also dictated a number of translations from Serbian youth songs (for example, “The Saber of Tsar Vukashin”, “Serbian Church”, “Radoytsa”, “Horse”), hence the poet and the period of the Tatar invasion of Russia and the struggle with nomads (“In Gorodets in 1263”, “Clermont Cathedral”).

In 1870, Maykov's translation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign was published - the result of four years of hard work.

In 1875 Maykov wrote the poem "Emshan" - an adaptation of one of the legends of the Ipatiev Chronicle. The poet had an enduring interest in the era of the clash of paganism with Christianity (“Olinth and Esther”, “Three Deaths”, the tragedy “Two Worlds”, etc.).

Despite the genre and thematic richness, Maykov's poetic heritage is unified in terms of style. Maikov's poetry captures with harmonic fusion
thoughts and feelings, impeccable artistic taste, melodiousness and musicality. It is no coincidence that in terms of the number of poems set to music, Apollon Nikolaevich occupies one of the first places among Russian poets of the 19th century.

  1. Literature or painting?

“My whole biography is not in external facts, but in the course and development of my inner life ...” - said the poet. The lyrics of Apollo Maykov were a reflection of his life - hobbies, political views and historical events that he witnessed.

Literature or painting?

Apollo Maykov was born into a noble family. He inherited his love for art from his parents, representatives of the creative intelligentsia. Father, Nikolai Maikov, was an academician of painting, mother, Evgenia Maikova, was a writer and poetess. “Maikov’s house was seething with life, people who brought here inexhaustible content from the sphere of thought, science, and art,” recalled the writer Ivan Goncharov, who gave literature and Russian language lessons to the family.

Growing up in such an environment, Apollon Maikov was sure that he would devote his life to art. He was equally gifted in both literature and painting, but he decided to opt for poetry for two reasons: his youthful poems were highly appreciated by the literary historian Alexander Nikitenko and the poet Pyotr Pletnev, and developing myopia prevented him from devoting enough time to painting.

"His poems are reminiscent of ancient poets"

Enrolling in 1837 at the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, Apollon Maykov began to study ancient Greek and Roman history. This passion influenced his work. Contemporaries wrote: "He seems to look at life through the eyes of a Greek, his poems are reminiscent of ancient poets, they have a bright and optimistic beginning."

Maykov's first works were published in the late 1830s. In 1842, his first poetry collection was published. “A poetic, full of life and certainty language” - this is how Vissarion Belinsky commented on the book of the young poet. Admiring Maykov's work "Dream", the critic wrote: "Pushkin himself would have had this poem from his best anthological plays."

For this collection, Apollon Maykov received an allowance from Emperor Nicholas I. With the money he received, he went on a trip to Europe, which lasted almost two years. The poet visited Italy, France, Austria and other countries.

He shared his impressions of the trip with readers in a new collection - Essays on Rome, published in 1847 in St. Petersburg. Literary critics noted that his work has changed: from antiquity, he moved on to modern life, he began to be more interested in the poetry of "thoughts and feelings."

Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of Apollo Maykov fishing. 1883

Apollo Mike. River landscape. 1854

Vasily Perov. Portrait of Apollo Maykov. 1872

Petrashevsky circle and natural school

Returning to the capital in 1844, Apollon Maykov became a prominent figure in the literary circles of St. Petersburg. He actively collaborated with the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski, and was friends with Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Turgenev.

With the help of his brother, Valerian, Apollo also got to the meeting of the first socialist circle in Russia, organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky. There, the poet began a close acquaintance with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Alexei Pleshcheev. Although Maikov did not share all the views of the natural school, the influence of this literary movement still affects his work. The poems of the 1840s are full of civic motifs. Maikov published his poems in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski by Andrey Kraevsky, and in 1845 he wrote the poem Two Fates, for which he received the Pushkin Prize of the Academy of Sciences. In 1846, the poem "Mashenka" was published in the "Petersburg Collection" by Nikolai Nekrasov.

... On the shelf of a book - yes, about a person
You can probably conclude
According to his chosen library,
In his soul, in concepts to read, -
Goldoni's comedies lay there,
History of the Madonna and Saints,
Opera libretto, poems by Tassoni
Yes, the calendar of temple processions ...

Apollo Mike. Excerpt from the poem "Two Fates" (1845)

When many members of the Petrashevsky circle were exiled, Maikov changed his attitude towards the revolutionary movement in Russia. Later, in notes to the poet Yakov Polonsky, he spoke of his “liberal period”: “A lot of nonsense, a lot of selfishness and little love. It was my stupidity, but not meanness.

Slavophiles and "pure art"

Since the 1850s, Apollon Maikov has become close to the editors of Moskvityanin, and conservative sentiments are increasingly felt in his work. Maikov shared the Slavophile ideas of Mikhail Pogodin (magazine publisher), Mikhail Katkov, Fyodor Tyutchev. During this period, the poet opposed the influence of Western European culture. He wrote a lot about the beauty of Russian nature. These poems, according to the publicist Mikhail Borodkin, "were memorized almost with the first prayers." Many of Maikov's works were set to music


Brief biography of the poet, the main facts of life and work:

APOLLO NIKOLAEVICH MAIKOV (1821-1897)

Apollon Nikolayevich Maikov was born on May 23 (June 4, New Style) 1821 in Moscow into an old noble family with rich cultural traditions. The ancestor of the Maykovs was the clerk of the Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich and Tsar Ivan the Terrible Andrei Mike. As many researchers suggest and all the Maikovs were sure, the Russian saint and church writer Nil Sorsky (in the world Nil or Nikolai Maikov) belonged to their family. However, no documentary evidence of this has yet been found.

The father of the future poet, Nikolai Apollonovich (1796-1873), was a man of unusually interesting fate. Youngster Maykov-father "was given to the second cadet corps at a time when only two careers were considered decent for a nobleman: either in the military or in the civil service. Right from the school bench, without having had time to finish the course, he was, like many then, released as an officer, about 18 years old, into the army, into the Bagration corps. In the Battle of Borodino, Nikolai Apollonovich was wounded in the leg and sent to an estate in the Yaroslavl province for treatment. In the same place, out of boredom, the young man took up drawing, first copying the picture that hung over his bed. The copy was a success, and having already returned to the service in the hussar regiment, Maikov continued to indulge in a new hobby. After the end of the war, Maykov, who was awarded the Order of Vladimir, retired with the rank of major, got married and, with relief, shifting all the worries of life onto the shoulders of his wife, took up painting. The Maikov brothers were already in adolescence when their father became a famous artist, a favorite of Emperor Nicholas I. On behalf of the sovereign, Maykov painted a number of images for the churches of the Holy Trinity in the Izmailovsky regiment (which brought him the title of academician in 1835), images for the small iconostases of St. Isaac's Cathedral, on the execution of which the artist worked for about 10 years.

The mother of the Maykov brothers, Evgenia Petrovna, nee Gusyatnikova (1803-1880), came from an old merchant family. The woman is highly educated, she collaborated in literary magazines, acted as a poetess and fiction writer.


The Maykovs had four sons. The elders, Valerian and Apollo, and the younger ones, Vladimir and Leonid.

The early childhood of Apollon Nikolaevich was spent in the estate of his father, the village of Nikolsky, near the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, and partly in the estate of his grandmother, the village of Chepchikha, Klinsky district, Moscow province.

His constant comrades were peasant children. Here he became addicted to fishing for the rest of his life, which was later reflected in his poem "Fishing".


In 1834 the Maykovs moved to Petersburg, and further fate the poet was connected with the capital.

Evgenia Petrovna was a kind and sociable lady, she always welcomed young writers, fed the poor, everyone could find support and a kind word from her. Subsequently, Maykova was very fond of and respected as best friend Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Numerous guests - artists and writers - always gathered in the friendly Moscow mansion of the Maykovs. In the end, the Maykov salon took shape, but it was not high society, and famous writers were not attracted to it. There were mostly young, beginning writers, semi-professional writers, talented amateurs, students who worshiped poetry and art. Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891), still unknown to anyone, became a frequent guest of the salon.

The initial education of Maykov's sons - Valerian and Apollo - was carried out at the home of a friend of Nikolai Apollonovich by the writer Vladimir Andreevich Solonitsyn. The history of literature was taught to the brothers by I. A. Goncharov.

The resulting “home circle”, which also included friends of the house V. G. Benediktov, I. A. Goncharov and others, “issued” the handwritten magazine “Snowdrop” and the almanac “Moonlight Nights”, which included the first poetic samples of young Maykov .

When Apollo was sixteen years old, he and Valerian entered St. Petersburg University. Apollo studied at the Faculty of Law.

At the university, the young poet was actively engaged in creativity. Maikov's gift was noticed, especially by Professor Pyotr Aleksandrovich Pletnev, who for many years then took care of the poet and introduced the greatest writers, in particular V. A. Zhukovsky and N. V. Gogol, to his works.

After graduating from the university, Apollon Nikolaevich was assigned to serve in the Department of the State Treasury, but soon, having received allowance from Nicholas I for traveling abroad, he left for Italy, where he studied painting and poetry, and then to Paris, where he listened to lectures on art and literature. Maikov visited both Dresden and Prague. He was especially interested in Prague, because by that time the poet had already become imbued with the ideas of Slavophilism and Pan-Slavism. In particular, he met and talked a lot with Safarik.

In 1844 Maykov returned to Russia, where he worked for eight years as an assistant librarian at the Rumyantsev Museum.

The first poetry collection of Apollon Nikolaevich "Poems" was published in 1842 and was highly appreciated by V. G. Belinsky.

During these years, Maykov became close to Belinsky and his entourage - I. S. Turgenev and N. A. Nekrasov. A special page in his life was the short-term participation of the poet in the activities of the Petrashevsky circle. On this basis, Maykov especially became friends with F. M. Dostoevsky.

On August 3, 1849, three and a half months after the arrest of all the activists of the Petrashevsky circle, Maikov was also arrested. He was interrogated, they came to the conclusion that he was a random person in this case, and they released him that evening.

In 1852, Maykov married a Russian German woman of the Lutheran faith, Anna Ivanovna Stemmer (1830-1911). Over time, four children were born to them, but only three sons survived to adulthood.

And in October 1852, the poet entered the service of the St. Petersburg Committee of Foreign Censorship, where he acted as junior censor. Despite the fact that the service was complex and difficult, the poet fell in love with her, especially when, on his advice, his friend and great Russian poet F. I. Tyutchev was appointed chairman of the committee, and in 1860 Ya. P. Polonsky became the secretary there. Since 1875 Maykov himself headed the committee.

I don’t need anything else: I want to die, like Tyutchev, in the committee dear to my heart, - Apollon Nikolaevich once admitted. Maykov worked in this department for forty-five years, until his death.

As head of the academic committee for foreign censorship, Maikov was also a member of the academic committee of the Ministry of Public Education. In 1853, the Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in the department of the Russian language and literature, and the Kyiv University an honorary member.

The Crimean War of 1853-1856 stirred up Maikov's patriotic and monarchist feelings. At the very beginning of 1855, his small book of poems "1854" was published.

After Crimean War Apollon Nikolayevich became close friends with the young editors of The Moskvityanin, the late Slavophiles and the "statesmen". On the basis of the Slavophils, but with a firm idea of ​​the state, with the recognition of post-Petrine history, Maykov became a supporter of the ideas of M. P. Pogodin and M. N. Katkov. At the same time, he created a number of poems about Russian nature, which were memorized “almost with the first prayers”, which became textbooks and quotes: “Spring! The first frame is exhibited…”, “Summer rain”, “Haymaking”, “Swallows” and others.

Fascinated by the era of Ancient Russia and Slavic folklore, Maykov created the best translation in the history of world literature into modern Russian of the epic "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (the work went on in the period 1866-1870).

Based on history ancient rome the poet wrote the philosophical and lyrical drama "Two Worlds", awarded the Pushkin Prize by the Academy of Sciences in 1882.

In everyday life, Maikov was characterized by subtle carefree humor and kindness of heart. All his life he remained a sincere unmercenary.

On February 27, 1897, Apollon Nikolaevich Maikov went out into the street too lightly dressed, soon fell ill, and a month and a half later, on March 8 (20 according to the new style), 1897, he died.

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