Konstantin Batyushkov

Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov (Russian Константин Николаевич Батюшков; * 18 Maijul / May 29 1787greg in Vologda, .. .. † 7 Julijul / July 19 1855greg ) was a Russian poet.

Life

Batyushkov was brought up in Saint Petersburg. He joined the St. Petersburg Protect Department at the outbreak of the war of 1806. In the battle of Heilenberg he was wounded. After his recovery, he fought until 1809 under the guard hunters in Finland and made as a staff captain and adjutant of General Nikolai Rajewski also the campaigns from 1812 to 1814 to the capture of Paris.

In 1818 he was appointed attache of the Russian Embassy in Naples. There, however, he soon fell into a mood disorder, against which a cure was not helping in the Bohemian spas. 1822 Batyushkov returned back to Russia. As showed traces of real insanity in the following year, he was brought by his relatives to Vologda, where he spent another 32 years in a complete absence of mind.

Batyushkov, who had trained to Petrarch and Tasso is, in terms of language development should be numbered among the best Russian writers; he led the ancient classical forms into Russian one, translated Tibullus, Petrarch, Tasso, Matthisson etc. and gave Russian language a hitherto unsuspected euphony. His own poems (collected Petersburg 1850) consist of elegies, epistles, stories and songs; one of the most beautiful elegies is the. 's death Tassos, in which he prophetically sings of his own destiny By the way, included the whole literary activity of the poet only for a period of ten years ( 1810-20 ).