The whole life of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev is a real example of love for the Fatherland and devotion to the Motherland. The huge creative potential was not spilled over trifles, but was reflected in more than four hundred verses.

It is not known how the life of our compatriot could have turned out if he had devoted himself entirely to literature. After all, even as a diplomat, corresponding member, secret adviser, he managed to clearly and confidently declare himself as a poet.

Childhood and youth

The future diplomat was born in a family belonging to an old noble family. It happened on November 23 (December 5), 1803. The boy was born in the family estate Ovstug, Bryansk district, Oryol province. Little Fedya spent his childhood here.

An image of Fedya, made on porcelain by an unknown artist, has been preserved. Here the child is three or four years old.

Father - Ivan Nikolaevich, was a role model: calm, gentle, reasonable. A good family man, a loving husband and father - such a characteristic was given by his contemporaries. In the future, Fyodor's college comrade will write in his diary: “I looked at the Tyutchevs, thought about family happiness. If only everyone lived as simply as they do."

And here is how the ten-year-old Fyodor describes his father, in a poem that is considered the very first known to us. The boy called him “Dear papa!”

And this is what my heart told me:
In the arms of a happy family
Gentle husband, father-philanthropist,
A true friend of kindness and the poor patron,
May your precious days pass in the world!

Mother - Ekaterina Lvovna Tolstaya, an interesting, pleasant woman with a delicate nature and a sensual soul. Probably, her youngest son Fedenka inherited her rich imagination and daydreaming. Ekaterina Lvovna was related to the famous sculptor, Count F.P. Tolstoy. She is his second cousin. Through his mother, Fedor met Leo Tolstoy and Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy.

As was customary in the nobility, the child received home education. Parents took care of the teacher for their son. They became Semyon Yegorovich Raich - this is a wonderful teacher, poet, journalist, translator. Thanks to his talent, the teacher was able to convey love to the pupil, and develop a desire to engage in literature. It was he who encouraged the first poetic experience of his student and, undoubtedly, had a beneficial effect on the formation of the work of the future poet.

At the age of fifteen, Fyodor attended Moscow University as a volunteer, and even before enrollment, in November 1818, he became a student of the Faculty of History and Philology at the Department of Literature. The young man graduated from the university in 1821, having a Ph.D. in verbal sciences.

Life abroad

A young official from March 18, 1822, was admitted to public service. He will serve in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. And already in the summer, Fedor Ivanovich follows his duty station in the city of Munich on a diplomatic mission.

The diplomat makes new business and personal acquaintances. Now he is personally acquainted with Heinrich Heine, a famous German poet, critic and publicist. With German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling. In his diary, Schelling wrote about Tyutchev: "He is an excellent person, a very educated person, with whom you are always willing to talk."

Here, in Munich, Tyutchev first married. Portraits of the poet's first wife, Eleanor Peterson, testify to the exquisite attractiveness and ability to present oneself. At the time of meeting Fyodor Tyutchev, the young woman had been a widow for a year and had four young sons. This is probably why young people hid their relationship for several years.

This marriage was successful. Three daughters were born to him. After eleven years of marriage, Fedor wrote to his parents: “... I want you, who love me, to know that not a single person has ever loved another like she did me ...”

Fedor did not dedicate poetry to his first wife. Only a poem dedicated to her memory is known:

At times when it happens
So heavy on my chest
And the heart languishes
And darkness is just ahead;
.........................................
So sweet, thank you
Airy and light
my soul a hundredfold
Your love was

Biographers of Tyutchev say that despite the love for his wife, the diplomat also has other connections. However, they are quite serious. In the winter of 1833, at a social event, Fyodor Ivanovich met Baroness Ernestine von Pfeffel, Dernberg in his first marriage. The poet is fond of a young widow, writes poetry to her, and in fact creates a fatal love triangle.

Probably, this passion would not exist if we would not read such verses:

I love your eyes my friend
With their fiery-wonderful play,
When you suddenly raise them
And, like lightning from heaven,
Take a quick circle...
But there is a stronger charm:
Downcast eyes
In moments of passionate kissing,
And through lowered eyelashes
Gloomy, dim fire of desire.

To avoid compromising evidence at the embassy, ​​it was decided to send the loving chamberlain to Turin.

It is not known how the drama of the love triangle could play out, but in 1838 Eleanor dies. Fedor Ivanovich sincerely mourns and endures her death as a great loss.

A year later, having endured the prescribed mourning, nothing prevents Fedor Ivanovich from marrying his former mistress Ernestine Dernberg. She was a rich, beautiful, educated woman. The poet developed a deep spiritual connection with her. The couple have always treated each other with respect. They had children. First a girl, then two sons.

In total, the diplomat spent 22 years abroad.

Life in Russia

From 1844 to 1848 Tyutchev served in Russia. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was entrusted with the position of senior censor. There is a lot of work, there is almost no time left for poetry.

No matter how busy the senior censor was, he found time for his family. Including Fedor Ivanovich visits his daughters, who were just studying at the institute. On one of his visits to Daria and Catherine, the amorous Fyodor Ivanovich met Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva, the same age as his eldest daughters. Relations began and lasted until Elena's death. This woman is dedicated to a large number of poems. Three children were born from this relationship.

Elena put everything on the altar of her love: relationships with her father, with friends, a career as a maid of honor. She was probably happy with the poet, who was torn between two families and dedicated poems to her.

But if the soul could
Here on earth find peace
You would be a blessing to me -
You, you, my earthly providence! ..

Even after fifteen years, poems are pouring about these difficult relationships.

Today, friend, fifteen years have passed
From that blissfully fateful day
How she breathed her whole soul,
How she poured herself into me ...

At this time, Tyutchev stands at a fairly high level of the hierarchy of officials. Since 1857 he was a real state councilor, since 1858 he was the chairman of the Foreign Censorship Committee, since 1865 he was a privy councillor.

Tyutchev was awarded state awards: the Imperial Order of St. Anna, the Imperial and Royal Order of St. Stanislav, the Imperial Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir.

After the death of his mistress, in 1864, the poet does not even try to hide his pain of loss in front of strangers. He is tormented by pangs of conscience. The poet considers himself guilty because he put his beloved in a false position. He reproaches himself even more for an unfulfilled promise, a collection of poems dedicated to Denisyeva has not been published. And the death of two children together with Elena completely brought the poet to insensibility.

Fyodor Ivanovich lived for 69 years. Been sick for the last few years. He died in the arms of his second legal wife, whom he also loved and respected.

Periodization of poetry

Some of the poet's poems are the property of Russian classics!

Biographers divide Tyutchev's work into three main periods:

➤ 1st period - initial. These are the years 1810-1820 - youthful poems, in style close to the 18th century.

➤ 2nd period - original poetics, 1820-1840. Individual features with traditional European romanticism and a mixture of solemnity.

➤ 3rd period - from 1850. For almost ten years, Tyutchev did not write poetry. Poems written in the last ten years of his life are like a poet's lyrical diary. They contain confessions, reflections, and confessions.

A poem written in 1870, "I met you - and all the past", like a farewell chord, exposes the soul of the poet. This is a real gem of Fedor Ivanovich's creativity. These poems and the music of the composer and conductor Leonid Dmitrievich Malashkin made the romance "I met you" one of the most famous and recognizable.

A capable, brilliant and very amorous man, Fyodor Ivanovich lived a worthy life, trying to remain honest to the end with himself, his Motherland, his beloved, his children.

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev belongs to the galaxy of poets of the golden age, when Russian literature experienced the period of its highest prosperity. The poems written by him are among the best examples of our literature, and selected works are studied as part of the school curriculum.

Initially, writing poetry was for Tyutchev only a way to pour out emotional experiences on paper, but one day a turning point occurred and he began to publish his poems in magazines. Literary critics took them with admiration, and the honor to publish Tyutchev's poems in the Sovremennik magazine was entrusted to the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

life path

The Tyutchevs were a wealthy noble family and lived in the Oryol province, on the territory of the Ovstug estate. Fedor Ivanovich was born on November 23, 1803.

His parents were able to give him an excellent education. At a young age, he was fluent in French and Latin, and also actively studied ancient Roman poetry. His teacher, Raich, paid special attention to the education in the boy of love for literature.

At the age of 15, Tyutchev began attending lectures at Moscow University on literature. In the future, he was able to enter there and already as a student to study his favorite discipline. Around the same time, the future poet was invited to the Society of people who love Russian literature.

In adolescence and youth, Tyutchev wrote poetry, but did not show them to anyone. These works turned out to be very archaic and corresponded more to the realities of the previous century than to modern trends for it.

In 1822, Tyutchev graduated from the university and was admitted to the College of Foreign Affairs. The place of residence and work for him was the Bavarian city of Munich, which Tyutchev even considered his home for some time. He had to live away from the Fatherland for a long 22 years.

At the same time, Tyutchev retained a love for his native speech and he actively wrote new poems. But he did not like to publish because of his excessive vulnerability to any criticism. And the first attempts to present the poems to the public, which he did in his youth, were unsuccessful and the public accepted without much enthusiasm.

In the period from 1836 to 1838, Tyutchev's poems were published in Pushkin's journal Sovremennik, but critics did not pay attention to them and the poet did not see the point in publishing further.

His wife died in Munich, but he was not a widower for long and married a German woman from Bavaria. After some time, Fedor Ivanovich was transferred to work in the city of Turin, located on the territory of the Sardinian kingdom. He left it without permission and because of this was expelled from the diplomatic body.

Despite attempts to stay in Munich, there were no legal grounds for further stay in the city and he went back to Russia in 1844. During the revolutionary activity of 1848 he expressed his loyalty to the authorities and showed himself as a conservative pan-Slav.

In the same year he became a senior censor and joined Belinsky's circle, where he met Nekrasov, Turgenev and Goncharov. In 1854, a book with Tyutchev's poems was published, which gave him the long-awaited celebrity and recognition.

Tyutchev was a very loving person and cheated on his wife with different women. This led to several scandals, and in 1865 his wife died. Fedor Ivanovich experienced indescribable moral suffering after this event and repented of his deed.

In 1873, Tyutchev left this world, giving his soul to God in Tsarskoye Selo.

creative way

There are three creative periods in Tyutchev's activities:

• 1810-1820: poetic obscurity. He writes poetry exclusively for himself, makes timid attempts to publish, but fails.
• 1820-1840: attracted the attention of Pushkin, poems are published in the journal Sovremennik.
• 1850-1870: Tyutchev's work received public recognition, and the poems received the highest marks from critics.

During the initial period, Tyutchev wrote such poems as "Vision", "Insomnia" and "Vision". They were published in the magazine "Galatea", which was published by Raich. Due to the outdated submission format, the poems were not popular and passed by the audience.

During the second period, someone advised Tyutchev to send poems to the strict court of the master of Russian poetry, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. They delighted the great poet and were published in the Sovremennik magazine. However, this time the audience turned out to be very whimsical.

In the period from 1848 to 1850, Tyutchev wrote poetry "Reluctantly and timidly", "Russian woman" and "When in the circle of murderous worries." They received a warm welcome from the public and inspired the poet to continue his work.

Then came a collection of poems, which included "Spring Waters", "The Enchantress in Winter" and "Autumn. Tyutchev liked to pay attention to nature in his work.

Total great poet wrote 400 poems included in the golden fund of Russian classical literature.

(1803-1873) Russian poet

Tyutchev's whole life consisted of continuous paradoxes. The largest Russian lyric poet constantly repeated that he did not consider literature his main business. Having devoted his entire life to Russia, he mostly lived outside of it. Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev wrote poetry all his life, and published only one small book.

Fyodor Ivanovich was born into a patriarchal noble family of moderate means and spent his childhood on the Ovstug estate in the southwest of the Oryol province. His father did not aspire to a service career and, having retired early, lived almost without a break on his estate.

From the age of four, Fedor was under the supervision of "uncle" N. Khlopov - a serf released to freedom. But he received a good education. He was completely led by his mother, from whom Fedor Tyutchev inherited a gentle and impressionable character.

The boy showed early talent for languages ​​and literature. Therefore, his mother moved with him to Moscow, where Fedor continued his home education. He was taught to write poetry by S. Raich, a well-known poet-translator, invited to him as a home teacher. Already at the age of twelve, Fyodor Tyutchev successfully translated Horace and wrote imitative poems. One of his poems fell into the hands of the famous poet A. Merzlyakov. He read the verses of the novice author at a meeting of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. And so it happened that at the age of fifteen Tyutchev became a member of this society.

The following year, after such memorable events, he entered the verbal department of Moscow University. There, A. Merzlyakov and the famous literary theorist M. Kachenovsky became his mentors.

After graduating from the university at the end of 1821, he received the degree of candidate. After that, he went to St. Petersburg and entered the service of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. In the same year, thanks to the help of his wealthy and influential relative, Count A. Osterman-Tolstoy, Tyutchev received a position as an official in the Russian diplomatic mission in Bavaria. He goes abroad, not yet knowing that he will return to Russia only after 22 years.

Abroad, Fedor Ivanovich settled in Munich and, in addition to diplomatic work, did a lot of literature. At first, his poems were published in the Northern Lira magazine, but neither readers nor critics paid attention to them. The situation changed after one of Tyutchev's friends sent the manuscripts of 24 of his poems to Pyotr Vyazemsky. Vyazemsky handed over the poems to Zhukovsky, and he, in turn, to Alexander Pushkin. So the poems of Fyodor Tyutchev appeared in Pushkin's Sovremennik.

After this publication, Fedor Ivanovich becomes a famous poet. At the same time, life in Munich gave him a number of heartfelt hobbies. Immediately after arriving there, the poet became seriously interested in Amalia Lerchenfeld. However, their relationship ended in nothing. Obviously, Fyodor Ivanovich dragged on for a long time with a marriage proposal, and his beloved married the wealthy Baron Krudener.

In 1826, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev married the widow of one of the diplomats, Eleanor Peterson. She was older, but their marriage was happy. Over the years, the Tyutchev family increased: they had three daughters.

In 1833, the poet experienced a passion for Ernestine Dörnberg. Their relationship almost led to a family and diplomatic scandal. But Fyodor Tyutchev was unexpectedly transferred to Italy, where he received the post of secretary of the Russian mission in Turin, and soon became acting ambassador. It seemed as if he would never see Ernestine again. But fate decreed otherwise.

In 1838, the poet's wife died unexpectedly, unable to withstand a strong nervous shock during a fire on the ship, where she ended up returning from Russia. Fedor Tyutchev was very upset by the loss and even turned gray overnight, but grief did not cool his passion for Ernestine Dernberg. Learning that she was also unexpectedly widowed, he went to Switzerland to marry the woman he loved. For this misconduct, Tyutchev was dismissed from service and deprived of the court rank of chamberlain. Nevertheless, together with his wife, he returned to Munich, where they lived happily for five years.

The lack of a strong position in society weighed heavily on the poet. Finally, in the summer of 1843, he went to Russia. However, all his attempts to seek forgiveness from Vice-Chancellor Nesselrode ended in failure. Even a meeting with the head of the Third Section, A. Benckendorff, did not help.

Fedor Ivanovich returns to Munich again and tries to earn a living by journalism. Unexpectedly for himself, he becomes a fashionable essayist, his articles even attracted the attention of Nicholas I. Just a year later, Fyodor Tyutchev was reinstated in the service, and the title of chamberlain was also returned to him.

Having gained a strong position, Fedor Ivanovich returns to Russia and begins to work as chairman of the Censorship Committee. In St. Petersburg, Tyutchev is accepted as a famous poet, he immediately becomes a welcome guest in literary salons, his remarks, catchphrases, jokes are passed from mouth to mouth. He settles in a beautiful apartment on Nevsky Prospekt.

At the same time, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev resumes writing poetry, which he publishes in the most popular magazines, and in 1854, on the initiative of Ivan Turgenev, a collection of his poems was published.

Then Fedor Ivanovich is experiencing the last passion in his life. While visiting his daughters at the Smolny Institute, he met the niece of the inspector of this institute, E. Denisyeva, and fell passionately in love with her. Upon learning of this, his wife left Russia and took the children with her.

Despite the fact that Denisyeva was 24 years younger than Fyodor Tyutchev, she reciprocated and even went against the will of the family, entering into a civil marriage with him and giving birth to three illegitimate children. Their civil marriage lasted 14 years, since Tyutchev's social position did not even allow the thought of divorce.

In 1864 Denisyeva died of tuberculosis. Relations with the beloved were reflected in the so-called "Denisiev" cycle lyric poems, which is a poetic diary of Tyutchev.

Shaken by the death of Denisiev, the poet went abroad to see his family, who at that time were in Nice. Fyodor Tyutchev spent the autumn of 1864 and the beginning of 1865 in France, and in the summer of 1865 he returned to St. Petersburg again. Here new blows await him - the death of two children and a mother.

Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev spent the last five years of his life in a state of gradually increasing depression caused by the loss of those closest to him. At the end of 1872, his health deteriorated rapidly and he died a few months later.

Along with Fet, Tyutchev remained in the history of Russian culture as the founder of philosophical lyrics. His poems contain a whole world of passions, experiences, insoluble collisions. The feeling of an approaching catastrophe prompts the poet to constantly strive for an unattainable ideal. That is why it is Tyutchev that poets consider their teacher late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, and above all the symbolists.

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev was born and spent his childhood on his father's estate in the Oryol province. Studied at home. He knew Latin and ancient Greek well. He learned early to understand nature. He himself wrote that he breathed one life with nature. His first teacher was a well-educated man, poet, translator Semyon Yegorovich Raich. Raich recalled that he quickly became attached to his student, because it was impossible not to love him.

He was a very affectionate, calm and very talented child. Raich awakened in Tyutchev a love of poetry. He taught to understand literature, encouraged the desire to write poetry. At the age of 15, Tyutchev entered Moscow University, and at the age of 17 he graduated from it and then went to serve in the Russian embassy abroad. For 22 years he served as a diplomat, first in Germany, then in Italy. And all these years he wrote poems about Russia. “I loved the Fatherland and poetry more than anything in the world,” he wrote in one of his letters from a foreign land. But Tyutchev almost did not print his poems. His name as a poet was not known in Russia.

In 1826, Tyutchev married Eleanor Peterson, nee Countess Bothmer. They had 3 daughters.

In 1836, Pushkin got a notebook with poems by an unknown poet. Pushkin liked the poems very much. He published them in Sovremennik, but the name of the author was unknown, since the poems were signed with two letters F.T. And only in the 50s. already Nekrasovsky's contemporary published a selection of Tyutchev's poems and immediately his name became famous.

His first collection was published in 1854 under the editorship of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. The poems were imbued with quivering, tender love for the Motherland and hidden pain for her fate. Tyutchev was an opponent of the revolution, a supporter of pan-Slavism (the idea of ​​uniting all Slavic peoples under the rule of the Russian autocracy). The main themes of the poems: Motherland, nature, love, reflections on the meaning of life

In philosophical lyrics, in love, in landscape, reflections on the fatal questions of life and the destiny of man were always present. Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev does not have purely love poems, or about nature. He has everything intertwined. In each poem, the human soul and the author himself. Therefore, Tyutchev was called a poet-thinker. Each of his poems is a reflection on something. Turgenev noted the skill of Tyutchev in the image emotional experiences person.

In December 1872, Fedor was paralyzed on the left side of his body, and his eyesight deteriorated sharply. Tyutchev died on July 15, 1873.

1. Fedor Tyutchev in Germany
2. last years of life
3. Interesting Facts

For many years, Fyodor Tyutchev was a diplomat and worked abroad, and wrote poetry in his spare time. His works were almost never published in Russia. Glory came to the poet after publications in the Sovremennik magazine, where Nikolai Nekrasov called him "Russian paramount poetic talent."

Childhood and university: "he studied unusually well"

Unknown artist. Portrait of Ekaterina Tyutcheva - mother of Fyodor Tyutchev (detail). Late 18th – early 19th century. Image: ftutchev.ru

Unknown artist. Portrait of Fyodor Tyutchev. 1805–1806 Image: ftutchev.ru

Fedor Kinel. Portrait of Ivan Tyutchev - father of Fyodor Tyutchev. 1801. Image: ftutchev.ru

Fedor Tyutchev was born on December 5, 1803 in the Ovstug family estate of the Oryol province (now the Bryansk region). He came from an old Russian noble family, which had been known since the 14th century. The poet's father Ivan Tyutchev served in the Kremlin, in last years In his lifetime, he led the "Kremlin Building Expedition" - a state organization that monitored the condition of historical monuments. Fyodor Tyutchev's mother Ekaterina Tolstaya was described by publicist Ivan Aksakov as "a woman of wonderful mind".

The Tyutchevs lived very friendly. His family friend Mikhail Pogodin wrote: “Looking at the Tyutchevs, I thought about family happiness. If everyone lived as simply as they do". Parents tried to give their children a good education at home: they taught Russian and French, music. The childhood of the future poet, his brother and sister passed in the Ovstug family estate.

“When you talk about Ovstuga, charming, fragrant, blooming, serene and radiant, - oh, what attacks of homesickness take possession of me”

Fyodor Tyutchev, from a letter to his wife Ernestine Pfeffel

In winter, the Tyutchevs often left for Moscow - the family had a mansion there. Literary critic Vadim Kozhinov wrote: “There is evidence that the Tyutchevs lived in Moscow according to the everyday canons inherent in it - they lived openly, widely, hospitably. The whole family indulged in the rituals of holidays, christenings, weddings, name days.. In 1812, due to the Patriotic War, they had to change their usual way of life and move to Yaroslavl for a while. After the end of hostilities, the Tyutchevs returned: their house was one of the few that survived the fire.

In the same 1812, Fyodor Tyutchev was hired by a home teacher - Semyon Raich. He was a connoisseur of ancient Greek, Latin, Italian. With his help, the future poet studied ancient literature and "by the thirteenth year he was already translating the odes of Horace with remarkable success". It was Raich that Fyodor Tyutchev dedicated one of his first poems, including the message “On the stone of fatal life” (“S. E. Raich”):

The mind is quick and sharp, the eye is faithful,
Imagination is fast...
And argued in life only once -
At the disputation of the master.

The future poet not only read a lot, he was interested in art and history. Among his favorite books were collections by Gavriil Derzhavin, Vasily Zhukovsky and Mikhail Lomonosov, The History of the Russian State by Nikolai Karamzin. From 1816 he was a volunteer at Moscow University and attended lectures.

“The child was extremely kind-hearted, meek, affectionate disposition, alien to any coarse inclinations; all the properties and manifestations of his childish nature were brightened up by some especially subtle, elegant spirituality. Thanks to his amazing abilities, he studied unusually successfully. But even then it was impossible not to notice that the teaching was not a labor for him, but, as it were, a satisfaction of the natural need for knowledge.

Ivan Aksakov, "Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev. Biographical sketch»

Semyon Raich gave one of Tyutchev's first works to his mentor, Alexei Merzlyakov, a professor at Moscow University. Merzlyakov decided to read the ode "For the New Year 1816" at a meeting of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature in February 1818. Soon Tyutchev - he was then 14 years old - was accepted into the organization. The poet's first poems began to appear in the journal Proceedings of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

In 1819, Tyutchev passed the exams in history, geography, and foreign languages, among which were Latin, French and German, and became a student at the Faculty of Literary Sciences of Moscow University. At the university, he closely communicated with the historian Mikhail Pogodin, the poet Dmitry Venevitinov, the writers Vladimir Odoevsky and Andrei Muravyov. In 1821, Tyutchev dedicated the poem "Spring greeting to the poets" to his comrades.

Fedor Tyutchev in Germany

Unknown artist. Portrait of Fyodor Tyutchev. Late 1810s. Moscow. Image: ftutchev.ru

Autographs of Fyodor Tyutchev's poems: "Silentium!" (left); “Winter is angry for a reason…” (on the right); “What are you howling about, night wind? ..” (below). Photo: ftutchev.ru

A. Zebens. Portrait of Countess Amalia von Lerchenfeld. 1865. Image: ftutchev.ru

Fedor Tyutchev graduated from Moscow University at the end of 1821 - a year ahead of schedule. To do this, he received special permission from the Minister of Public Education, Prince Alexander Golitsyn. A year later, Tyutchev moved to St. Petersburg. There the poet became an employee of the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs. In the capital, he lived in the house of his relative Count Osterman-Tolstoy - the hero Patriotic War, general. It was he who recommended sending Tyutchev on a diplomatic mission to Munich. Later, the poet wrote to his parents: “A strange thing is the fate of man. It was necessary for my fate to arm itself with the surviving Osterman's hand in order to throw me so far from you!.

Tyutchev lived in the Kingdom of Bavaria for more than twenty years - he finally returned to Russia only in 1844. In Germany, he met the philosopher Friedrich Schelling, the poets Johann Goethe and Heinrich Heine. The poet translated the works of German philosophers and writers, including Friedrich Schiller's "Song of Joy", attended literary evenings, corresponded with foreign scientists, wrote journalistic articles on French.

“Tyutchev's connections with the culture of the West are sometimes portrayed one-sidedly - they are reduced to only German connections. In fact, other European authors were also of considerable importance for Tyutchev: he mastered the poetry of Byron, he turned to Shakespeare more than once, he knew French romanticism, the French realistic novel, and French historical science very well. Munich and Bavaria, and then for a while Turin and Italy were instructive for Tyutchev not only in themselves - they "pushed" him into Europe, from these cities he was clearly visible to the political and cultural life of other European capitals "

Fedor Tyutchev did not leave literary creativity either. In the second half of the 1820s, he wrote about seventy poems, including “Spring Thunderstorm”, “As the Ocean Embraces the Globe of the Earth ...”, “Silentium!” and others. During these years, the poet created philosophical, landscape and love lyrics. Later, Valery Bryusov wrote about his work at this time: “Tyutchev learned almost nothing from his Russian predecessors. In his early poems there is the influence of Zhukovsky and, in part, Derzhavin; later Tyutchev took something from Pushkin. But on the whole, his verse is extremely independent, original..

Already in 1823, a few months after moving to Munich, Tyutchev composed for Amalia von Lerchenfeld, with whom he was in love, the poem “Your sweet look, innocent passion full…". Two years later, the poet almost became a duel because of her. To avoid scandal, he had to return to Russia for six months. Later, Tyutchev dedicated the poems “I remember the golden time” and “I met you, and all the past” to his beloved. Immediately after returning, Tyutchev married Eleanor Peterson, the widow of Russian diplomat Alexander Peterson, from whom she had four children. The poet wrote to his parents: “I want you who love me to know that no person has ever loved another as she loved me ... there was not a single day in her life when, for the sake of my well-being, she would not agree, without a moment's hesitation, to die for me". They later had three daughters.

In 1829, Tyutchev's teacher Semyon Raich began publishing the magazine Galatea in Moscow. He invited the poet to publish. Tyutchev agreed, and his poems were printed in almost every issue. After the closure of Galatea in 1830, Tyutchev was invited to collaborate with Mikhail Maksimovich's almanac Dennitsa. In this edition, the works "Calmage", "Spring Waters", "The Last Cataclysm" were published.

“Tyutchev, as already mentioned, was in no hurry to become a poet; becoming a poet, he again was in no hurry to publish poetry. It is known that he submitted poems to Moscow magazines and almanacs only thanks to the persistent requests of Raich, the Kireevsky brothers, and Pogodin. In very rare cases - and then only in the last years of his life - the poet's poems got into print on his personal initiative.

Vadim Kozhinov, "Tyutchev" (from the series "Life of Remarkable People")

"Poems sent from Germany": Fedor Tyutchev and the Sovremennik magazine

Sergei Rodionov. Portrait of Fyodor Tyutchev in the park. Photo reproduction by Tatyana Shepeleva. Image: book-hall.ru

Unknown artist. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin. Image: book-briefly.ru

Grigory Myasoedov. Portrait of Peter Vyazemsky. 1899. Tula Regional Art Museum, Tula

Tyutchev was very demanding about his work - he rewrote and reworked finished works many times, and destroyed some of them. He recalled: “Ah, writing is a terrible evil, it is, as it were, the second fall of the poor mind…”. His poems, even published, were little known in the early 1830s. And Tyutchev's career was not successful - he received a small salary and did not live well.

In 1835, the poet's friend Ivan Gagarin returned from a diplomatic mission to St. Petersburg and learned that Tyutchev was almost unknown in Russia. Gagarin persuaded the poet to send him a notebook with the last poems and took several unpublished works from Raich. And then he showed all the collected manuscripts to Peter Vyazemsky and Vasily Zhukovsky.

“... The other day I give Vyazemsky some poems, carefully disassembled and rewritten by me; a few days later I casually drop in on him around midnight and find him alone with Zhukovsky reading your poems and completely carried away by the poetic feeling that your poems breathe. I was in admiration, delighted, and every word, every remark, especially Zhukovsky, convinced me more and more that he correctly understood all the shades and all the charm of this simple and deep thought.

Diplomat Ivan Gagarin, from correspondence with Fyodor Tyutchev

Vyazemsky and Zhukovsky handed over the works to Alexander Pushkin. He read them and in 1836 published them in Sovremennik under the heading "Poems sent from Germany". Pushkin was careful about the publication - the censor Krylov wanted to remove several stanzas from the poem "Not what you think, nature ...". But the poet achieved publication with dots in place of the missing stanzas. So the readers of the magazine could understand: in the magazine the poem is incomplete and reduced by the decision of censorship.

“Eyewitnesses told me how delighted Pushkin was when he first saw a collection of his [Tyutchev’s] handwritten poems ... He rushed about with them for a whole week”

Yuri Samarin, publicist, philosopher

Tyutchev's poems were published in three books of Sovremennik, including in 1837, after Pushkin's death. Despite this, critics almost did not react to them. At the same time, Ivan Gagarin, who wanted to publish a book of Tyutchev's works, returned to serve in Germany. Literary critic Naum Berkovsky wrote: “Tyutchev still did not enter then in a genuine way into literature”.

In May 1837, the poet again came to Russia for several months. Here he composed the poem "January 29, 1837" about the death of Pushkin:

Peace, peace be with you, O shadow of the poet,
The world is bright to your ashes! ..
In spite of human vanity
Great and holy was thy lot!
You were the living organ of the gods,
But with blood in their veins... sultry blood.

“I made up my mind to leave the diplomatic field”: recent years in Europe

Unknown artist. Portrait of Eleonora Tyutcheva - the first wife of Fyodor Tyutchev. 1830s Image: mirtesen.ru

Egor Botman. Portrait of Alexander Benckendorff. Copy of a portrait of Franz Kruger. Image: ftutchev.ru

Friedrich Durk. Portrait of Ernestine Dernberg - the second wife of Fyodor Tyutchev. 1840. Munich, Germany. Image: ftutchev.ru

In 1838, Fyodor Tyutchev was sent on a diplomatic mission to Turin. Eleanor Peterson and the children sailed to him on a steamboat. When they were near the German city of Lübeck, the ship caught fire. Tyutchev's wife and his children were not hurt, but, of course, they were very scared. Eleanor Peterson's health deteriorated after the disaster. In August 1838, after a serious illness, she died. However, a few months later Tyutchev married again. Ernestine Dernberg became his wife. The poet met her back in 1833 and since then maintained a relationship, wrote several love poems, including “I love your eyes, my friend ...” and “Memories of March 20, 1836 !!!”. In the marriage of Tyutchev and Dernberg, five children were born.

In 1839, Fyodor Tyutchev filed a petition to leave the service. He remained in Europe until 1844. In 1843 he met Alexander Benckendorff, head of the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery. Benckendorff was in charge of the detective and was the chief of the gendarmes. Tyutchev showed him his philosophical works - reflections on the fate of Russia and the West, and Benckendorff handed them over to Emperor Nicholas I. Tyutchev wrote to his parents: “He [Benckendorff] assured me that my thoughts were received quite favorably, and there is reason to hope that they will be given a move”. Nicholas I read the poet's works and supported his ideas. Tyutchev wanted to change the attitude of Europeans towards Russia and was going to publish articles on politics in well-known German and French magazines. The emperor promised to support the poet and invited him to Petersburg for an audience. September 20, 1844 Tyutchev returned to Russia. However, three days later, Benckendorff, who patronized the poet, died. As Ivan Kozhinov wrote: “The death of Benckendorff, obviously, interrupted the implementation of the entire Tyutchev “project”.

Return to Russia: "bewitching storyteller" and publicist

Fedor Tyutchev. 1848–1849 St. Petersburg. Photo: ftutchev.ru

Autographs of Fedor Tyutchev's draft materials for the treatise "Russia and the West" and "Fragment". Photo: ftutchev.ru

Fedor Tyutchev. 1860–1861 Photo: Sergey Levitsky / ftutchev.ru

In 1845, a few months after returning to St. Petersburg, Fedor Tyutchev again became an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For several years - until 1849 - he stopped writing poetry. During these years, the poet attended secular salons, balls. The Petersburg nobility remembered him as a good storyteller who understood politics and philosophy.

“A lot of my life happened to talk and listen to famous storytellers, but none of them made such a charming impression on me as Tyutchev. Witty, tender, sharp, kind words, like pearls, rolled carelessly from his lips.<...>When he began to speak, to tell, everyone instantly fell silent, and in the whole room only Tyutchev's voice was heard.<...>The main charm of Tyutchev<...>was that<...>there was nothing prepared, learned, invented"

Writer Vladimir Sologub, "Memoirs"

In 1848, Tyutchev was appointed senior censor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This position did not bring the poet a lot of money, and the work seemed to him boring and monotonous. Every day, Tyutchev had to search the press for articles on foreign policy. He wrote to his parents: “If I weren’t so poor, with what pleasure would I throw in their faces the maintenance they pay me, and openly break with this crowd of cretins ... What a brat, great God! ..”. During these years, he wrote and published articles in French, including "Russia and the Revolution", "Russia and Germany", "The Papacy and the Roman Question". The poet conceived a large-scale historical treatise "Russia and the West", in which he planned to present his thoughts on foreign policy. The work remained unfinished, although Tyutchev worked on it for several years.

“By the end of the 40s, Tyutchev began to preach the political and spiritual isolation of Russia from Europe. According to his treatises, Russia is a great patriarchal empire, a pillar of order, a confessor of Christian impersonality and humility. The Christian idea got along well with Tyutchev's aggressive pathos, with calls for the expansion of territories, for the capture of Constantinople, which, according to his theory, was supposed to be the center of a state uniting Slavic peoples under the rule of the Russian Tsar

Naum Berkovsky, "On Russian Literature"

Love lyrics and Slavophilism

Nikolay Nekrasov. Photo: Sergey Levitsky / interesnyefakty.org

Elena Deniseva. Late 1850s. Photo: ftutchev.ru

Alexander Gorchakov. Photo: valdvor.ru

In 1850, the poet Nikolai Nekrasov in his article called Tyutchev "Russian paramount poetic talent". Soon after, his old works began to appear in magazines, and Tyutchev himself began to write poetry again and publish them. In the early 1850s, “Like a pillar of smoke brightens in the sky!”, “Tears of people, oh tears of people”, “Oh, how deadly we love” and other works were published. At the same time, Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Nekrasov prepared for publication his first collection, which was published in 1854. A large circulation for that time - three thousand copies - was sold out in a short time.

At this time, the poet wrote philosophical and love lyrical poems, which were combined into the so-called "denisevsky" cycle: he devoted most of it to his beloved Elena Denisyeva. The poet met her back in the late 1840s, where he came to visit his daughters Daria and Catherine. Denisyeva studied with them. For almost fifteen years - until the death of Denisyeva in 1864 - Tyutchev maintained relations with both his legal wife and her. Deniseva wrote: “I have nothing to hide and there is no need to hide from anyone: I am more than anything his wife than his ex-wives, and no one in the world has ever loved and appreciated him as much as I love and appreciate him”. She bore Tyutchev three children.