The poet Wilhelm Küchelbecker: biography, creativity

As a poet, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker is little known. He grew up surrounded by brilliant poets, above all, no doubt, was Pushkin. Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Delvig was his entourage. In those years Baratynsky wrote. In the circle of these poets, it is easy to get lost with the outdated, overly civilized muse that Kuchelbecker had, although his talent was considerable.

A family

Kiichelbecker Wilhelm Karlovich was born in 1797 in St. Petersburg. The family was not rich, but had both useful connections and influential relatives. Father, a very educated man, studied in Leipzig at the same time as Goethe and Radishchev. He had extensive knowledge in the field of agronomy, economics and law. Influential relatives helped him to take office at the court (the secretary of the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich). Later he was appointed director of Pavlovsk. Wilhelm's mother was also at court. She was the nurse of the younger son of Emperor Mikhail Pavlovich. Paul I gave Kuchelbecker's father to the estate for life. It was in him, in Avinorme, that Wilhelm Küchelbecker had spent his childhood.

The father, Karl Kiichelbecker, turned out to be a very economic man. He successfully managed the estate, and even in the bad harvest in 1808, the peasants did not starve in his estate. But the family had four children, and all had to be educated, so there was always a lack of money.

At the age of nine, William was seriously ill and deaf in one ear. From the fact that everything is inadequate, before a calm, cheerful and mischievous child became nervous and irritable. When William turned eleven years old, his father died, and the family estate was taken away. The family was taken care of by the adult married sister of Wilhelm, Justin. Her husband later became the tutor of the great princes Nikolai Pavlovich and Constantine.

At the Lyceum

By this time, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker had already studied at a boarding school, where there was a wonderful general education program. But the big financial help to the family was the free Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum. In 1811, he was brought there by a distant relative, Mikhail Barclay de Tolly. The teenager brilliantly passed the entrance exams.

The abilities and perseverance of the young Kiichelbecker were noticed by his superiors. But all also saw insufficient knowledge of the Russian language and enthusiasm for German authors. Lyceumists ridiculed it in the same way as the deafness of a teenager. They joked about Kühl and wrote epigrams, which irritated him very much and led to quarrels. But the innocent good-natured Kiukhl quickly cooled down. However, his extensive knowledge and perseverance caused respect for the lyceum students. At the age of 15, he began with enthusiasm to write poems in both Russian and German. The poems turned out to be tongue-tied. And the importance with which he communicated, as well as the poems, still caused ridicule. Alexander Pushkin too, like everyone else, ironically treated the compositions of the awkward Kühli. But he quickly saw in it and straightforwardness, and sincerity, and then, he is better than many know the literature, history, philosophy. And if necessary, you are always ready to share with all your knowledge. Wilhelm Kiichelbecker admired the poetic gift of Pushkin, his poems, sonorous and precise, with deep thoughts.

Service and poetry as a high art

At twenty years with a silver medal, Kuchelbecker graduated from the Lyceum and entered the College of Foreign Affairs. Immediately he found himself an additional job. Kiichelbecker began to teach Russian literature in the Noble Boarding School. In 1820, becoming secretary of A. Naryshkin, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker travels abroad and visits Germany and France. During these years he actively composes and prints poems. This is the most fruitful period in his work. In total, he wrote about a hundred poems. There were many imitations of Zhukovsky, but in general his verses are pretentious. This is a characteristic feature of them. Their content is high, and therefore his art is pathetic. Female images in poems are not characteristic for him. After that there was a service in the Caucasus at Yermolov, but because of the duel he retired and can not find work for himself.

The case that changed life

By 1825 Kiichelbecker was back in Petersburg. Two months before the insurrection, he enters the Northern Society and acts with the Decembrists on the Senate Square. Pushkin believed that he participated in the uprising accidentally. At first he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and then to an eternal settlement in Siberia.

The last time Pushkin saw Kiukhelbeker when he was transported from one fortress to another in the autumn of 1827. Pushkin and Kiichelbecker, despite the presence of gendarmes, rushed to hug and kiss each other. They were separated. Kiichelbecker, although he was ill, was quickly seated in a cart and taken away. Pushkin always remembered this meeting with excitement. There are suggestions that Kuchelbecker was the prototype of Lensky.

In the fortress of Sveaborg in 1832, he wrote "Elegy." In it he talks about the sad thoughts of the prisoner, who bent his head on his arm. Who will understand the longing of his lyrical hero? Who cares about his bitter fate? He is his own support. With his hardness of spirit, he will not allow himself to be carried away by impossible dreams. Let him be in chains, but his spirit is free. And yet he can not help being sad about nature, the earth, about the vast sky, about the stars in which other worlds are made. So, bowing his head, he longs for fate. It extinguished the divine fire, with which no prison is afraid, no betrayal of love, poverty. Thus ends the elegy Kuchelbecker.

In Siberia

Kiichelbecker keeps his diary entries constantly, and Pushkin's name often appears in them. But then he was transferred to Barguzin, where he married the illiterate daughter of a postmaster and had four children. Three survived. Then, at his own request, Kiichelbecker was transferred to Tobolsk, and then to Kurgan, where he would be blinded. And again Tobolsk. This is already a seriously ill person. He will die of tuberculosis in August 1846, before he reached the age of 50.

Until the end of his life Kiichelbecker will treat poetry as something high, prophetic, serving civil ideals. Was a philosopher and at the same time a romantic Wilhelm Kuchelbecker. His biography causes sad thoughts.