What is Griboedov s nationality?

“It would be the work of his friends to write his biography; but wonderful people are disappearing from us, leaving no traces behind. We are lazy and incurious. ” A. S. Pushkin, “Travel to Arzrum” (1835) January 4 (15), 1795, Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov, Russian writer and diplomat, was born. He came from an ancient noble family, the founder of which was Jan Grzybowski, a native of Poland. Griboyedov spent his childhood and teenage years in his mother’s house in Moscow. Dreaming of a brilliant career for her son, she gave him an excellent education, first under the guidance of foreign tutors, and then at the Moscow University Noble Boarding School. In 1806, Griboedov entered Moscow University, where he graduated first from the literary and then from the ethical and political department, supplementing his humanitarian education with legal education. Griboyedov was one of the most educated people of his time and, according to A. S. Pushkin, “one of the smartest people in Russia.” Having an excellent command of the main European languages ​​(French, English, German, Italian, Greek, Latin), and later having mastered eastern ones (Arabic, Persian and Turkish), he also had musical abilities – he was an excellent pianist, had a talent for composition (two of his waltzes are known for piano). With the beginning of the Patriotic War of 1812, Griboedov left his academic studies and joined the Moscow Hussar Regiment as a cornet as part of the reserve units. At the end of 1815, he retired and settled in St. Petersburg, leading a secular lifestyle. Having become interested in literature and theater, Griboyedov met the famous poet and theatergoer P. A. Katenin, with whom he created the comedy “Student” in 1817, and became close to the circle of playwright and theater figure A. A. Shakhovsky. In 1817, Griboyedov entered the service of the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs, but due to “ardent passions and powerful circumstances,” as defined by Pushkin, in 1818 he was forced to leave the capital and go as secretary of the Russian diplomatic mission to Persia. After three years of service in Tabriz, in February 1822 he transferred to Tiflis to the chief administrator of Georgia, General A.P. Ermolov. The 1st and 2nd acts of his most famous work, the comedy “Woe from Wit,” were written here, the first listener of which was the author’s Tiflis colleague, the Decembrist V. K. Kuchelbecker. By the autumn of 1824, the comedy was completed, but only excerpts published in 1825 by the writer F.V. Bulgarin in the anthology “Russian Waist” were cleared through censorship. This work immediately became an event in Russian culture, spreading among the reading public in handwritten copies, the number of which was close to the book circulation of that time. Already in January 1825, the Decembrist I. I. Pushchin brought one of these lists to Pushkin to Mikhailovskoye. As Pushkin predicted, many lines of “Woe from Wit” became proverbs and sayings (“The legend is fresh, but hard to believe,” “Happy people do not watch the clock”). In February 1826, Griboedov was summoned to St. Petersburg as a suspect in the Decembrist case, since the papers of many of those arrested contained lists of “Woe from Wit,” and during interrogations, some of them named him among the members of the secret society. However, Griboedov managed to destroy part of his archive, and during the investigation he categorically denied his involvement in the conspiracy, and in early June he was released from arrest. Returning to the Caucasus shortly after the start of the Russian-Persian War of 1826-1828, Griboedov was involved as a diplomat and, having achieved significant success in this field, prepared the Turkmanchay Peace, beneficial for Russia. In March 1828, the Russian diplomat brought documents of the peace treaty to St. Petersburg, for which he received the Order of St. Anne, the rank of state councilor and appointment as minister plenipotentiary to Persia. Returning to Persia, Griboedov began implementing one of the articles of the peace treaty, which provided for the return of Russian citizens to their homeland. An appeal to him for help from two Armenian women who had fallen into the harem of a noble Persian, heated the situation around the Russian mission to the limit and became the reason for reprisals against the active diplomat. On January 30 (February 11), 1829, a crowd incited by Muslim fanatics destroyed the mission in Tehran. The Russian envoy was killed. Griboyedov was buried in Tiflis on Mount St. David. The words of his wife Nina are inscribed on the gravestone: “Your mind and deeds are immortal in Russian memory, but why did my love survive you?” Lit.: Griboyedov A. S. Complete works. T. 1-3. St. Petersburg, 1911-1917; A. S. Griboedov in the memoirs of his contemporaries. M., 1980; Piksanov N.K. Chronicle of the life and work of A.S. Griboyedov, 1791-1829. M., 2000; Fomichev S. A. Comedy by A. S. Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”: Commentary. M., 1983. See also in the Presidential Library: How often do readers remember an author from just one work? For example, Ken Kesey is remembered for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jerome Salinger for The Catcher in the Rye, Harper Lee for To Kill a Mockingbird, and Patrick Suskind for the novel Perfume. The listed authors and works are foreign, so everything can be attributed to the lack of translations. But what then to do with domestic authors – with Alexander Griboyedov, for example?

Childhood and youth

The future writer and diplomat was born in Moscow. In literature textbooks they write that this happened in January 1785, but experts doubt this – then some facts from his biography become too surprising. There is an assumption that Alexander was born five years earlier, and the date in the document was written differently, since at the time of his birth his parents were not married, which was perceived negatively in those years. By the way, in 1795, Alexander Griboedov had a brother, Pavel, who, unfortunately, died in his infancy. Most likely, it was his birth certificate that later served the writer. Sasha was born into a noble family, which descended from the Pole Jan Grzybowski, who moved to Russia. The Griboyedov surname is a literal translation of the Pole’s surname. The boy grew up curious, but at the same time sedate. He received his first education at home, reading books – some researchers suspect that this is due to hiding his date of birth. Sasha’s teacher was the encyclopedist Ivan Petrosalius, popular in those years. Despite his sedate manner, Griboyedov was also prone to hooligan antics: once, while visiting a Catholic church, the boy performed the folk dance song “Kamarinskaya” on the organ, which shocked the clergy and visitors to the church. Later, already as a student at Moscow State University, Sasha will write a caustic parody called “Dmitry Dryanskoy,” which will also put him in an unfavorable light. Even before studying at Moscow State University, Griboyedov entered the Moscow University Noble Boarding School in 1803. In 1806 he entered the literature department of Moscow State University, which he graduated in 2 years. Afterwards, Griboedov decides to study in two more departments – physics and mathematics and moral and political. Alexander receives his PhD degree. He plans to continue his studies further, but his plans are ruined by the Napoleonic invasion. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the future writer joined the ranks of the volunteer Moscow Hussar Regiment, led by Count Pyotr Ivanovich Saltykov. He was enrolled as a cornet along with other people from noble families – the Tolstoys, Golitsyns, Efimovskys and others.

Literature

In 1814, Griboyedov began to write his first serious works, which were the essay “On Cavalry Reserves” and the comedy “The Young Spouses,” which was a parody of French family dramas. The following year, Alexander moves to St. Petersburg, where he ends his service. In St. Petersburg, the aspiring writer meets the publicist and publisher Nikolai Ivanovich Grech, in whose literary magazine “Son of the Fatherland” he would later publish some of his works. In 1816 he became a member of the Masonic lodge “United Friends”, and a year later he organized his own lodge – “Blago”, which will differ from classical Masonic organizations by focusing on Russian culture. At the same time, the writer begins work on “Woe from Wit” – the first ideas and sketches appear. In the summer of 1817, Griboyedov entered the civil service at the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, first as a provincial secretary, and later as a translator. In the same year, Griboedov met Alexander Pushkin and Wilhelm Kuchelbecker. He will become friends with both of them and will cross paths more than once in his short life. While still working as a provincial secretary, the writer wrote and published the poem “Lubochny Theater,” as well as the comedies “Student,” “Feigned Infidelity” and “The Married Bride.” The year 1817 was marked in Griboyedov’s life by another event – the legendary quadruple duel, the reason for which was the ballerina Avdotya Istomina (as always, cherchez la femme). However, to be precise, in 1817 only Zavadovsky and Sheremetev fought, and the duel between Griboedov and Yakubovich took place a year later, when the writer, having refused the position of an official of the Russian mission in America, became the secretary of the Tsar’s attorney Simon Mazarovich in Persia. On the way to his place of duty, the writer kept a diary in which he recorded his journey. In 1819, Griboyedov completed work on “Letter to a Publisher from Tiflis” and the poem “Forgive me, Fatherland.” Autobiographical moments related to the period of service in Persia will also appear in “Vagina’s Tale” and “Ananur Quarantine”. In the same year he received the Order of the Lion and the Sun, first degree. The writer did not like working in Persia, so he was even glad that his arm was broken in 1821, because thanks to the injury, the writer was able to achieve a transfer to Georgia, closer to his homeland. In 1822 he became diplomatic secretary under General Alexei Petrovich Ermolaev. At the same time he wrote and published the drama “1812”, dedicated to the Patriotic War. In 1823, he left the service for three years to return to his homeland and rest. Over the years he has lived in St. Petersburg, Moscow and on the estate of an old friend in the village of Dmitrovskoye. He is finishing work on the first edition of the comedy in verse “Woe from Wit,” which he gives to the now elderly fabulist Krylov for review. Ivan Andreevich appreciated the work, but warned that the censors would not let it through. In 1824, Griboedov wrote the poem “David”, the vaudeville “Deception after Deception”, the essay “Special Cases of the St. Petersburg Flood” and the critical article “And they compose – they lie, and they translate – they lie.” The following year he began work on a translation of Goethe’s Faust, but only managed to finish the Prologue in the Theater. At the end of 1825, due to the need to return to service, he was forced to abandon his trip to Europe, instead leaving for the Caucasus. After participating in the expedition of General Alexei Alexandrovich Velyaminov, he wrote the poem “Predators over Chegel.” In 1826, he was arrested and sent to the capital on suspicion of Decembrist activities, but six months later he was released and reinstated in service due to the lack of direct evidence. Nevertheless, the writer was under surveillance. In 1828, Griboyedov took part in the signing of the Turkmanchay Peace Treaty. In the same year he received the Order of St. Anne, second degree, and got married. The writer was unable to write or publish anything else, although his plans included many works, among which creativity researchers especially highlight the tragedies about Vladimir the Great and Vladimir Monomakh. According to them, Griboyedov had potential no less than Shakespeare.

Personal life

There is a theory that the quadruple duel of 1817 took place due to a short intrigue between Griboedov and the ballerina Istomina, but there are no facts to prove this hypothesis. On August 22, 1828, the writer married the Georgian aristocrat Nina Chavchavadze, whom Alexander Sergeevich himself called Madonna Bartalome Murillo. The couple was married in the Zion Cathedral, located in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). By the end of 1828, Alexander and Nina realized that they were expecting a child. That is why the writer insisted that his wife stay at home during his next ambassadorial mission the following year, from which he never returned. The news of her husband’s death left the young girl in shock. Premature birth occurred and the baby was stillborn.

Death

At the beginning of 1829, Griboyedov was forced by work to go as part of an embassy mission to Feth Ali Shah in Tehran. On January 30, the building in which the embassy was temporarily located was attacked by a large group of Muslim fanatics (more than a thousand people). Only one person managed to escape; by pure chance, he ended up in another building. Alexander Griboyedov was found among the dead. His disfigured body was recognized by the injury to his left hand received during a duel with cornet Alexander Yakubovich in 1818. Posthumously, Griboyedov was awarded the Order of the Lion and the Sun, second degree. The writer was buried, as he had bequeathed, in Tiflis, on Mount Mtatsminda, located next to the Church of St. David.

Interesting Facts

• Griboyedov’s parents were distant relatives: Anastasia Fedorovna was Sergei Ivanovich’s second cousin.
• Sergei Ivanovich, Griboyedov’s father, was a renowned gambler. It is believed that it was from him that the writer inherited a good memory, thanks to which he was able to become a polyglot. His arsenal included French, English, Italian, German, Arabic, Turkish, Georgian, Persian and ancient Greek, as well as Latin.

• Griboyedov’s sister, Maria Sergeevna, was at one time a popular harpist and pianist. The writer himself, by the way, also played music well and even managed to write several piano pieces.
• Artists depicted Griboyedov and some of his relatives on canvas. The writer’s wife is the only one who was captured in the photo.

Bibliography

• 1814 – “The Young Spouses”
• 1814 – “On cavalry reserves”
• 1817 – “Lubochny Theater”
• 1817 – “Feigned Infidelity”
• 1819 – “Letter to the publisher from Tiflis”
• 1819 – “Forgive me, Fatherland”
• 1822 – “1812”
• 1823 – “David”
• 1823 – “Who is brother, who is sister”
• 1824 – “Teleshova”
• 1824 – “And they compose – they lie, and they translate – they lie”
• 1824 – “Woe from Wit”
• 1825 – “Predators on Chegem”