Nikolay Fyodorovich Shcherbina (; – ) was a 19th-century

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n poet.

Life

Much of the biographical information about Shcherbina comes from autobiographical sources. He was born in the Mius district of the

Don Cossack Host Don Cossacks (, ) or Donians (, ), are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don. Historically, they lived within the former Don Cossack Host (, ), which was either an independent or an autonomous democratic republic in present-da ...

in the mansion of his mother. His father was of

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

descent, and his mother of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

descent. Both his parents were born into noble families. When he was eight, his family moved to the city of

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 ...

, populated by Greek and Italian colonists. This influenced his aesthetic feelings and acquainted him with the Greek way of life and popular legends. Shcherbina studied at the Taganrog Boys Gymnasium (

Chekhov Gymnasium The Chekhov Gymnasium in Taganrog on Ulitsa Oktyabrskaya 9 (formerly Gymnasicheskaya Street) is the oldest gymnasium in the South of Russia. Playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov spent 11 years in the school, which was later named aft ...

), where he fell in love with

Greek language Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), south ...

lessons and wrote the long poem ''Sappho'' at the age of thirteen (which he subsequently destroyed). At the age of twenty he began to study in the Kharkiv University, but could not afford to study there for longer than half a year. He began to work as a teacher to support his parents. In Kharkiv, he met the young writer

Osip Rabinovich Osip Aaronovich Rabinovich (; – ) was a Russian-Jewish writer, journal, and belletrist. He is notable as the founder of the first Jewish journal published in Russian. Life Rabinovich was born in Kobeliaky on to a well-off family. His fathe ...

, who would later become his great friend; Rabinovich would assist him in publishing his poetry, and upon the occasion of Shcherbina's death would call him one of his "best friends" and describe the two of them as "inseparable". In 1838, his work ''To the Sea'' was published for the first time in the magazine ''Syn Otechestva'' (Son of the Fatherland). In 1849, he moved to Odessa, where he was able to live with Lev Pushkin, brother of

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

. In 1850, a collection of his poems, ''Grecheskie stikhotvoreniya'' (Greek Verses), was published in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

and was well received by the public. Shcherbina moved to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

the same year, where he worked as assistant to the chief editor of ''

Moskovskie Vedomosti ''Moskovskiye Vedomosti'' (, ; ) was a Russian newspaper. It was the largest newspaper by circulation in Russia before it was overtaken by Saint Petersburg's dailies in the mid-19th century. Moscow University (founded in 1755) established the ...

'' and published poems in various journals from Moscow and

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. In March 1855, he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he was appointed Official for Special Missions at the Ministry of Public Education. In the capital, he published ''Pchela'' (Bee), a collection of verses for popular reading, which was approved by the Ministry and improved his financial means. In 1857, his complete works in two volumes and ''Collection of the Best Russian Poems'' were published. In 1860–1869, he served at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1864, he grew ill with a sickness of a throat; this illness caused his death in 1869.

References

External links

* * 1821 births 1869 deaths Poets from the Russian Empire 19th-century poets from the Russian Empire 19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire Burials at Tikhvin Cemetery {{Russia-poet-stub