Dmitry Konstantinovich Girs (; (1836, in

Taganrog Taganrog (, ) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don (river), Don River. It is in the Black Sea region. Population: Located at the site of a ...

– , in

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) was a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

writer. Dmitry Girs was born in

, where his father was chief of quarantine. Girs's ancestors were of Swedish origin. His most notable relative was his cousin Nikolai Karlovich Girs,

foreign minister In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

in 1882–1894. In 1843, his family moved to

, where he studied in a military school, graduated from the engineer college, and then served as a field engineer. In 1868 he had to leave the city as punishment for his speech at the funeral ceremony of Dmitri Pisarev. Girs's first writings were published in 1862 in ''

The Russian Messenger The ''Russian Messenger'' or ''Russian Herald'' (, Pre-reform Russian: Русскій Вѣстникъ) has been the title of three magazines published in Russia during the 19th century and early 20th century. ''Russian Messenger'' period I and ...

'' under the pen-name Konstantinov. In 1868 he published the beginning of his novel ''Staraia i novaia Rossia'' (The Old and New Russia) in ''

Otechestvennye zapiski ''Otechestvennye Zapiski'' ( rus, Отечественные записки, p=ɐˈtʲetɕɪstvʲɪnːɨjɪ zɐˈpʲiskʲɪ, variously translated as "Annals of the Fatherland", "Patriotic Notes", "Notes of the Fatherland", etc.) was a Russian lit ...

'' (Homeland Notes). Although the novel aroused great expectations, it was never finished. Other works by Girs are ''Na krayu propasti'' (On the edge of the abyss) in ''Delo'' (The deed), 1870; ''Kaliforniiskiy rudnik'' (The California mine) in ''Otechestvennye zapiski'', 1872; ''Dnevnik notarialnogo pistsa'' (The diary of a notary scribe), ''Ibid''., 1883; ''Avdotya-dvumuzhnitsa'' (Avdotya the bigamist) in ''Russkaya mysl (Russian Thought), 1884. In 1876 Girs worked in

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as a military reporter for '' Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti'' (The St. Petersburg Gazette) and in 1877 for ''Severnyi vestnik'' (The Northern Bulletin). In 1878-1880 Girs published his own newspaper, called ''Russkaya pravda'' (Russian Truth), in which he wrote

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of , the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle ...

s under the pen-name Dobro-Glagol. The paper was respected but never enjoyed great success; it incurred administrative penalties and was suspended from publishing many times. Girs's works ''Zapiski voiennogo'' (Notes of a military man) and ''Kaliforniiskiy rudnik'' were published in a single volume (St. Petersburg, 1872).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Girs, Dmitry 1836 births 1886 deaths Writers from Taganrog People from Yekaterinoslav Governorate People from the Russian Empire of Swedish descent Writers from the Russian Empire