Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky (, ; 23 July 1792 – 22 November 1878) was a Russian poet and a leading personality of the

Golden Age of Russian poetry Golden Age of Russian Poetry (or ''Age of Pushkin'') is the name traditionally applied by philologists to the first half of the 19th century. This characterization was first used by the critic Peter Pletnev in 1824 who dubbed the epoch "the Golden ...

Biography

His parents were a Russian prince of

Rurikid The Rurik dynasty, also known as the Rurikid or Riurikid dynasty, as well as simply Rurikids or Riurikids, was a noble lineage allegedly founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who, according to tradition, established himself at Novgorod in the ...

stock, Prince Andrey Vyazemsky (1754–1807), and an Irish lady, Jenny Quinn

O'Reilly O'Reilly () is a common Irish surname. The O'Reillys were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred and were closely related to the Ó Ruairc ( ...

(1762–1802), in baptism Evgenia Ivanovna Vyazemskaya. As a young man he took part in the

Battle of Borodino The Battle of Borodino ( ) or Battle of Moscow (), in popular literature also known as the Battle of the Generals, took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. ...

and other engagements of the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

. Many years later,

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referr ...

's description of the battle in ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...

'' appeared inaccurate to him, and he engaged in a

literary feud A literary feud is a conflict or quarrel between well-known writers, usually conducted in public view by way of published letters, speeches, lectures, and interviews. In the book ''Literary Feuds'', Anthony Arthur describes why readers might be i ...

with the great novelist. Vera Vyazemskya

In the 1820s Vyazemsky was the most combative and brilliant champion of what then went by the name of

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

. Both Prince Pyotr and his wife Princess Vera (née Gagarina) were on intimate terms with

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 ...

, who often visited their family seat at Ostafievo near Moscow (now a literary museum). Unsurprisingly, Vyazemsky is quoted in Pushkin's works, including ''

Eugene Onegin ''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' (, Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: Евгеній Онѣгинъ, романъ въ стихахъ, ) is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin. ''Onegin'' is considered a classic of ...

''. The two friends also exchanged several epistles in verse. Vyazemsky and the other leading Russian liberals, such as Pushkin and

Alexander Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here ar ...

and Nikolay Turgenev, were all heavily shaped by the Kantian teachings of Alexander Kunitsyn and often discussed their attitudes on serfdom, the Russian administrative and legal system, civil society, and foreign policy through private correspondence, where Vyazemsky was highly critical of the administration's abuses in the western provinces. He also published a prospectus declaring an "uncompromising war to all the prejudices, vices and absurdity that reign in our society." At that time, the elderly poet gained admission to the Russian court, in part through his daughter's marriage to

Pyotr Valuev Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Valuev (; September 22, 1815 – January 27, 1890) was a Russian politician and writer. Biography Valuev was born in the Tsaritsyno District of Moscow on September 22, 1815. Valuev served as Emperor Alexander II's ...

, the future Chairman of the Committee of Ministers. In the 1850s, Vyazemsky served as a deputy minister of education and was in charge of state censorship. In 1863, he settled abroad on account of bad health. Prince Vyazemsky died in

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...

, but his body was brought to

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 ...

and buried there.

Literary output

Vyazemsky is probably best remembered as the closest friend of

. Their correspondence is a treasure house of wit, fine criticism, and good Russian. In the early 1820s, Pushkin proclaimed Vyazemsky the finest prose writer in the country. His prose is sometimes exaggeratedly witty, but vigor and raciness are ubiquitous. His best is contained in the admirable anecdotes of his ''Old Notebook'', an inexhaustible mine of sparkling information on the great and small men of the early nineteenth century. A major prose work of his declining years was his biography of

Denis Fonvizin Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin (, ; – ) was a Russian playwright and writer of the Russian Enlightenment. He was one of the founders of literary comedy in Russia. His main works are two satirical comedies—including '' The Minor'', which mocks con ...

, the eighteenth-century Russian dramatist. Though Vyazemsky was the journalistic leader of Russian Romanticism, there can be nothing less romantic than his early poetry: it consists either of very elegant, polished, and cold exercises on the set commonplaces of poetry, or of brilliant essays in word play, where pun begets pun, and conceit begets conceit, heaping up mountains of verbal wit. His later poetry became more universal and essentially classical.

Bibliography

* Newerkla, Stefan Michael. ''Das irische Geschlecht O'Reilly und seine Verbindungen zu Österreich und Russland he Irish O'Reilly family and their connections to Austria and Russia', in: ''Diachronie – Ethnos – Tradition: Studien zur slawischen Sprachgeschichte iachrony – Ethnos – Tradition: Studies in Slavic Language History'' Eds. Jasmina Grković-Major, Natalia B. Korina, Stefan M. Newerkla, Fedor B. Poljakov, Svetlana M. Tolstaja. Brno: Tribun EU 2020; , pp. 259–27
(open access)
here pp. 272–273. * Венгеров С. А. Источники словаря русских писателей, т. I, СПб. 1900. * Бондаренко В.В. Вяземский. М., 2004 (серия "Жизнь замечательных людей") * Гинзбург А. Вяземский литератор, Сборник «Русская проза», под ред. Б. Эйхенбаума и Ю. Тынянова, Л., 1926. * Грот Я., Сухомлинов М., Пономарев С., в Сборнике 2 отделения Академии наук, т. XX, 1880. * Кульман H. Вяземский как критик. Известия Академии наук. книга 1. 1904. * Собрание сочинений Вяземского в 12 тт. СПб. 1878—1886, его переписка, «Остафьевский архив», т. I—V. * Спасович В. Вяземский и его польские отношения и знакомства. Сочинения Спасовича, т. VIII, 1896. * Трубачев С. С. Вяземский как писатель 20-х гг., «Исторический вестник», Ї 8, 1892. * Языков Д. П. Вяземский. — М. 1904.

Notes

References

External links

Petr Vyazemsky. Complete Works in Russian

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vyazemsky, Pyotr Male poets from the Russian Empire Russian male poets Journalists from the Russian Empire Russian male journalists Male writers from the Russian Empire Members of the Russian Academy Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Members of the State Council (Russian Empire) 1792 births 1878 deaths People from the Russian Empire of Irish descent 19th-century writers from the Russian Empire Russian military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars 19th-century poets from the Russian Empire Privy Councillor (Russian Empire) Burials at Tikhvin Cemetery