Gabriel (Gavrila) Romanovich Derzhavin (July 3, 1743, Sokury village, Kazan province — July 8, 1816, Zvanka estate, Novgorod province) — Russian poet of the Enlightenment, statesman of the Russian Empire, senator, actual privy councilor.

Biography.

According to family legend, the Derzhavins and Narbekovs came from one of the Tatar families. A certain Bagrim-Murza left for Moscow from the Great Horde and after baptism entered the service of Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich.
Gabriel Romanovich was born into a family of small landed nobles on the family estate of Sokury near Kazan on July 14, 1743, where he spent his childhood. Mother — Fekla Andreevna (nee Kozlova). Gavrilo Romanovich lost his father, Second Major Roman Nikolaevich, at an early age.
From 1762 he served as an ordinary guardsman in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, and as part of the regiment he took part in the coup d’etat on June 28, 1762, as a result of which Catherine II ascended the throne.

From 1772 he served in the regiment as an officer; in 1773-1775, as part of the regiment, he participated in the suppression of the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev. Derzhavin’s first poems were published in 1773.
In 1777, upon his retirement, the civil service of State Councilor G.R. Derzhavin began in the Government Senate.
Wide literary fame came to G. Derzhavin in 1782 after the publication of the ode “Felitsa,” which was enthusiastically dedicated by the author to Empress Catherine II.

Since the founding of the Imperial Russian Academy in 1783, Derzhavin was a member of the academy and took a direct part in the compilation and publication of the first explanatory dictionary of the Russian language.
In May 1784 he was appointed ruler of the Olonets governorate. Arriving in Petrozavodsk, he organized the formation of provincial administrative, financial and judicial institutions, and put into operation the first civilian medical institution in the province — the city hospital. The result of on-site inspections in the districts of the province was his “Daily note, made during the review of the province by the ruler of the Olonets governorship, Derzhavin,” in which G. R. Derzhavin showed the interdependence of natural and economic factors, noted the elements of the material and spiritual culture of the region. Later, images of Karelia entered his work: the poems “Storm”, “Swan”, “To the Second Neighbor”, “For Happiness”, “Waterfall”.
In 1786-1788 he served as the ruler of the Tambov governorship. He proved himself to be an enlightened leader and left a significant mark on the history of the region. Under Derzhavin, several public schools, a theater, and a printing house were opened (where in 1788 the first provincial newspaper in the Russian Empire, Tambov News, was published), a plan for Tambov was drawn up, order was put in place in office work, and the foundation was laid for an orphanage, an almshouse and a hospital.

In 1791-1793 — cabinet secretary of Catherine II.
In 1793 he was appointed senator and promoted to privy councilor.
From 1795 to 1796 — President of the Commerce Collegium.
In 1802-1803 — Minister of Justice of the Russian Empire.
All this time, Derzhavin did not leave the literary field, creating the odes “God” (1784), “Thunder of Victory, Ring Out!” (1791, unofficial Russian anthem), “Nobleman” (1794), “Waterfall” (1798) and many others.
Gabriel Romanovich was friends with Prince S. F. Golitsyn and visited the Golitsyn estate in Zubrilovka. In the famous poem “Autumn during the Siege of Ochakov” (1788), Derzhavin urged his friend to quickly take the Turkish fortress and return to his family:

And hurry up, Golitsyn!
Bring laurel into your home with olive oil.
‎Your wife is golden-haired,
Plenira with heart and face,
The long-desired voice has been waiting,
When you arrive at her house;
When you hug me passionately
You are your seven sons,
You will look tenderly at your mother
And in joy you will not find words.

On October 7, 1803, he was dismissed and released from all government posts (“dismissed from all affairs”).
In retirement, he settled on his Zvanka estate in the Novgorod province. In the last years of his life he was engaged in literary activities.
Derzhavin died in 1816 in his house on the Zvanka estate.

Family.

At the beginning of 1778, Gabriel Romanovich married 16-year-old Ekaterina Yakovlevna Bastidon (immortalized by him as Plenira), the daughter of the former valet of Peter III of Portugal, Bastidon.
In 1794, at the 34th year of her life, she died suddenly. She was buried at the Lazarevskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra of St. Petersburg. Six months later, G.R. Derzhavin married Daria Alekseevna Dyakova (sung by him as Milena).
Derzhavin had no children from either his first or second marriage. In 1800, after the death of his friend, Pyotr Gavrilovich Lazarev, he took into the care of his children, among whom was Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, an outstanding admiral, discoverer of Antarctica, governor of Sevastopol.

In addition, the orphaned nieces of Daria Dyakova were brought up in the house — the children of her sister Maria and the poet Nikolai Lvov: Elizaveta, Vera and Praskovya. Praskovya’s diary contains interesting details about Derzhavin’s family.
Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin and his second wife Daria Alekseevna (died in 1842) were buried in the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Varlaamo-Khutyn Monastery near Veliky Novgorod.

During the Great Patriotic War, the monastery buildings were subjected to artillery fire and were in ruins for more than forty years. In 1959, the remains of G.R. Derzhavin and his wife were reburied in the Novgorod Kremlin.
In 1993, after the completion of the restoration of the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Varlaamo-Khutyn Monastery, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the birth of G. R. Derzhavin, the remains of Gabriel Romanovich and Daria Alekseevna Derzhavin were returned from the Novgorod Kremlin to the crypts of the monastery.

Awards.
“Old Derzhavin noticed us. And, going into the grave, he blessed” (A.S. Pushkin). Examination at the Imperial Lyceum in a painting by I. E. Repin
Order of St. Alexander Nevsky;
Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree;
Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree.
Order of St. Anne, 1st class
Order of St. John of Jerusalem Commander’s Cross

Creation

The work of G. R. Derzhavin represents the pinnacle of Russian classicism of M. V. Lomonosov and A. P. Sumarokov.
The purpose of the poet, in the understanding of G. R. Derzhavin, is the glorification of great deeds and the censure of bad ones. In the ode “Felitsa” he glorifies the enlightened monarchy, which is personified by the reign of Catherine II. The intelligent, fair empress is contrasted with the greedy and selfish court nobles:

You just won’t offend the only one,
Don’t insult anyone
You see the foolishness through your fingers,
The only thing you can’t tolerate is evil…
The main object of Derzhavin’s poetics is man as a unique individual in all the richness of personal tastes and preferences. Many of his odes are philosophical in nature, they discuss the place and purpose of man on earth, the problems of life and death:

I am the connection of worlds existing everywhere,
I am an extreme degree of substance;
I am the center of the living
The trait is the initial of the deity;
My body is crumbling into dust,
I command thunder with my mind,
I am a king — I am a slave — I am a worm — I am God!
But, being so wonderful, I
When did it happen? — unknown:
But I couldn’t be myself.
Ode «God», (1784)

Derzhavin creates a number of examples of lyrical poems in which the philosophical tension of his odes is combined with an emotional attitude to the events described. In the poem “The Snigir” (1800), Derzhavin mourns the death of Alexander Suvorov:

Why are you starting a war song?
Like a flute, dear bullfinch?
With whom will we go to war against Hyena?
Who is our leader now? Who is the hero?
Where is the strong, brave, fast Suvorov?
Severn thunder lies in the grave.
Before his death, Derzhavin begins to write an ode to THE RUIN OF HONOR, from which only the beginning has reached us:

The river of times in its aspiration
Takes away all people’s affairs
And drowns in the abyss of oblivion
Nations, kingdoms and kings.
And if anything remains
Through the sounds of the lyre and trumpet,
Then it will be devoured by the mouth of eternity
And the common fate will not go away!
As noted by Prof. Andrei Zorin, the merit of a new reading and a new discovery of Derzhavin belongs to the “Silver Age” — readers of the second half of the 19th century treated his work as a long-outdated tradition of bygone years.

Attitude to fine arts.
Picturesqueness is one of the main features of Derzhavin’s poetry, which was called “talking painting.” As E. Ya. Danko wrote, “Derzhavin had the extraordinary gift of being imbued with the artist’s plan and, in terms of this plan, creating his own poetic images, more perfect than their original sources.” In 1788, in Tambov, Derzhavin had a collection of 40 engravings, including 13 sheets based on originals by Angelika Kaufman and 11 sheets based on originals by Benjamin West. Derzhavin fell under the spell of Kaufman’s elegant, often sentimental neoclassicism, expressing his attitude towards the artist in the poem “To Angelica Kaufman” (1795):

The painting is glorious,
Kaufman! Friend of the muses!
If your brush is influenced
Above is the liveliness, the feeling, the taste <…>
The presence of reproduced paintings by Benjamin West is explained by Derzhavin’s interest in history. West, who received the official title of «History Painter to His Majesty» from George III, was one of the first painters to specialize in the historical genre. Of the 40 engravings collected by Derzhavin, 12 depicted circumstances associated with the death of famous heroes and heroines of the past. Another 13 showed dramatic moments from ancient history and mythology. Derzhavin also had two works by the Russian artist Gavrila Skorodumov — “Cleopatra” and “Artemisia”.

Perpetuation of memory.
Commemorative coin of the Bank of Russia. 1993
Postal card with original Russian stamp, 1993
USSR postage stamp, 1972
Tambov State University was named after G. R. Derzhavin.
The only square in Laishevo (Tatarstan) is called Derzhavinskaya.
One of the streets in Tambov is named Derzhavinskaya in honor of G. R. Derzhavin.
In Veliky Novgorod, on the Monument “1000th Anniversary of Russia”, among the 129 figures of the most outstanding personalities in Russian history (as of 1862), there is the figure of G. R. Derzhavin.
A memorial stele in the poet’s homeland in the village of Derzhavino (Sokury).
A monument in Kazan that existed in 1846-1932 and was recreated in 2003.
Monument on Derzhavinskaya Square in Laishevo.
Monument in Tambov.
Monument, memorial plaque, street and lyceum in Petrozavodsk.
Memorial sign in Zvanka (now on the territory of the Chudovsky district of the Novgorod region on the bank of the Volkhov river).
Museum-estate of G. R. Derzhavin and Russian literature of his time (Fontanka River embankment, 118). Monument in St. Petersburg.
In Laishevo, the local history museum is named after the poet, to whom most of the museum’s exhibition is dedicated.
The following events are held annually in Laishevo: the Derzhavin Festival (since 2000), the Derzhavin Readings with the presentation of the Republican Literary Prize named after Derzhavin (since 2002), the All-Russian Literary Derzhavin Festival (since 2010).
The Laishevsky district is often unofficially called the Derzhavinsky region.
A crater on Mercury is named after Derzhavin.
In 2003, the Tambov Regional Duma awarded Derzhavin the title of honorary citizen of the Tambov region.
In 2016, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Kirill and President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov took part in the opening ceremony of the monument to the Russian poet and statesman Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin in his small homeland near Kazan (the village of Kaipy), on the day of the 200th anniversary of the poet’s death.