Anniversary of Alexei Apukhtin. Recall and meet again Automatic translate

BOLKHOV. The writer Aleksei Nikolaevich Apukhtin, a native of the ancient Russian city in the Oryol province, turned 175 years old.

The Imperial College of Jurisprudence, despite it, could well compete with the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in terms of the level of students’ training and the universality of the education received. It is enough to get acquainted with the names of his graduates, and it will become clear that the institution made a huge contribution not only to the development of domestic law, but also to literature, music, diplomacy, and entrepreneurship. In the long list, in addition to Koni, Taube and Meyer, you can find the names of Aksakov, Stasov, Nabokov (the father of the famous writer), Alyokhin, Evreinov, von Meck. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Alexei Nikolaevich Apukhtin also left the walls of this school. It not only allowed them to receive a diverse education, but also laid the foundation for their friendship.

Apukhtin passed away unforgivably early, at 52 years old, having lost due to his illness the ability to move freely and even sleep normally. His literary heritage could reach our times in a much larger volume. But much was not fixed on paper by Apukhtin himself, most of the works turned out to be lost forever. Despite the popularity of his poetic opuses, his talent was not fully appreciated. He himself called himself an unrecognized poet, although a considerable number of his poems were put to the music of Arensky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, turning into well-known romances: “Day reigns”, “Nights are crazy”, “Neither recall, nor words, nor greetings”. And if critics often criticized Apukhtin’s poetry for stereotyped, limited stories, an overabundance of banal melodramatic vocabulary (passion, tears, folly), in prose he appears to be completely different: deep, witty, unexpected in his choice of topics. Full of irony and hidden sarcasm, “Countess D. Archive”, witty and somewhat autobiographical “Pavlik Dolsky’s Diary”, a fantastic and innovative story for Russian literature, “Between Life and Death”, which touched on questions about the relocation of souls and the afterlife. The gothic work became Apukhtin’s “swan song”, a year after the completion of the manuscript he died. Magnificent prose was published only after the writer passed away. Among those who appreciated it - Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov.

A topic exaggerated by some biographers about the features of the writer’s personal life often distracts potential readers from his work, which is only regrettable. But this is a completely different story.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru