Afanasy Fet's biography is briefly the most important thing for children. Last years of life Years of birth feta

Russian poet (real name Shenshin), corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1886). The lyrics of nature, saturated with specific signs, the fleeting moods of the human soul, musicality: “Evening Lights” (collections 1 4, 1883 91). Many poems are set to music.

Biography

Born in October or November in the village of Novoselki, Oryol province. His father was a wealthy landowner A. Shenshin, his mother was Caroline Charlotte Föth, who came from Germany. The parents were not married. The boy was registered as the son of Shenshin, but when he was 14 years old, the legal illegality of this recording was discovered, which deprived him of the privileges given to hereditary nobles. From now on he had to bear the surname Fet, the rich heir suddenly turned into a “man without a name,” the son of an unknown foreigner of dubious origin. Fet took this as a shame. Regaining his lost position became an obsession that determined his entire life path.

He studied at a German boarding school in the city of Verro (now Võru, Estonia), then at the boarding school of Professor Pogodin, a historian, writer, and journalist, where he entered to prepare for Moscow University. In 1844 he graduated from the literature department of the university's Faculty of Philosophy, where he became friends with Grigoriev, his peer and fellow poet. Gogol gave Fet his “blessing” for serious literary work, saying: “This is an undoubted talent.” Fet's first collection of poems, "Lyrical Pantheon", was published in 1840 and received Belinsky's approval, which inspired him to further work. His poems have appeared in many publications.

In order to achieve his goal of regaining the title of nobility, in 1845 he left Moscow and entered military service in one of the provincial regiments in the south. He continued to write poetry.

Only eight years later, while serving in the Life Uhlan Guards Regiment, he got the opportunity to live near St. Petersburg.

In 1850, the magazine Sovremennik, owned by Nekrasov, published Fet's poems, which aroused the admiration of critics of all directions. He was accepted among the most famous writers (Nekrasov and Turgenev, Botkin and Druzhinin, etc.), thanks to literary earnings, he improved his financial situation, which gave him the opportunity to travel around Europe. In 1857 in Paris, he married the daughter of a rich tea merchant and the sister of his admirer V. Botkin M. Botkina.

In 1858, Fet retired, settled in Moscow and energetically engaged in literary work, demanding from publishers an “unheard-of price” for his works.

A difficult life path developed in him a gloomy outlook on life and society. His heart was hardened by the blows of fate, and his desire to compensate for his social attacks made him a difficult person to communicate with. Fet almost stopped writing and became a real landowner, working on his estate; he is elected magistrate in Vorobyovka. This went on for almost 20 years.

At the end of the 1870s, Fet began to write poetry with renewed vigor. The sixty-three-year-old poet gave the collection of poems the title “Evening Lights.” (More than three hundred poems are included in five issues, four of which were published in 1883, 1885, 1888, 1891. The poet prepared the fifth issue, but did not manage to publish it.)

In 1888, in connection with the “fiftieth anniversary of his muse,” Fet managed to achieve the court rank of chamberlain; He considered the day on which this happened, the day when the surname “Shenshin” was returned to him, “one of the happiest days of his life.”

Born into the family of landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin and his mother, who left her husband Johann-Peter Fet for him. After fourteen years, the Oryol spiritual consistory returned the surname of his mother’s previous husband to Afanasy, which caused him to lose all the privileges of the nobility. Fet studied at first at home, then was sent to a German boarding school in Verro and graduated brilliantly in 1837.

In 1837 Afanasy Fet came to Moscow and studied at the boarding school of Professor M.P. Pogodin and in 1838 he entered first the Faculty of Law, then the Historical and Philological Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University.

In 1840, he published at his own expense a collection of poems, “A.F.’s Lyrical Pantheon,” which was praised in “Notes of the Fatherland” and scolded in “Library for Reading.”

In 1842 - 1843, his eighty-five poems were published in Otechestvennye zapiski.

In 1845, Afanasy Fet entered the cuirassier regiment stationed in the Kherson province as a non-commissioned officer, wishing to acquire hereditary Russian nobility. In 1846 he was awarded his first officer rank.

In 1847, censorship permission was received to publish the book and a book of poems was published in 1850. The poems received positive reviews in the magazines Sovremennik, Moskvityanin, and Otechestvennye zapiski.

In 1853, Afanasy Fet joined the Uhlan Guards regiment, stationed near Volkhov, and began to visit St. Petersburg more often. Here he began to communicate with the new editors of Sovremennik N. Nekrasov, I. Turgenev, V. Botkin, A. Druzhinin.

In 1854, his poems began to be published in Sovremennik.

In 1856, Afanasy Fet left military service with the rank of guards headquarters captain, having not achieved the nobility, and settled in Moscow. In 1857 he married M.P. Botkina.

In 1860, he bought an estate in Mtsensk district and, in the words of I. Turgenev, “became an agronomist-owner to the point of despair.”

From 1862, he began to regularly publish essays in the editorial “Russian Bulletin” that exposed the conditions in the countryside.

In 1867 - 1877 Afanasy Fet was elected justice of the peace.

In 1873, the surname Shenshin was recognized as his surname and hereditary nobility was granted. During this period, he was little involved in literary activities.

In 1881, Afanasy Fet bought a mansion in Moscow and in the same year his translation of “The World as Will and Representation” by A. Schopenhauer was published.

In 1882, he published his translation of the first part of “Faust” by I.V. Goethe.

In 1883, Afanasy Fet began publishing his poems again in the form of collections “Evening Lights”.

In 1888, the second part of “Faust” by I.V. was published. Goethe translated by Afanasy Fet and the third collection of poems “Evening Lights”.

Afanasy Fet died of a suspected heart attack on November 21 (December 3), 1892 in Moscow. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the family estate of the Shenshins.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (11/23/1820-11/21/1892), Russian poet. His father was the German Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Föth, assessor of the Darmstadt city court. Mother Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker was married to her husband for only about a year. She, being pregnant by him (this is confirmed by her letters to her first husband and relatives), became interested in a 45-year-old Russian nobleman, captain Afanasy Shenshin, who was in Germany undergoing treatment, and in September 1820 she left with him for Russia.

Her son was born in the village. Novoselki, Oryol province, was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, named Afanasy, and was recorded in the registry register as the son of the landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. In September 1822, Shenshin married Charlotte Becker, who converted to Orthodoxy before the wedding and began to be called Elizaveta Petrovna Fet.

In 1834, when Afanasy Shenshin was 14 years old, a certain “error” was discovered in the documents (lack of official adoption), the boy was deprived of his surname, nobility and Russian citizenship and became “Hessendarmstadt subject Afanasy Fet.” This became a mental trauma for him, since he considered himself the son of Shenshin, and not Fet. Only in 1873 did he manage to officially take the surname Shenshin, but he continued to sign his literary works with the surname Fet, since he had already gained fame with this name.

In 1834–1837 Fet studied at a German boarding school in Verro (now Võru, Estonia), then at the verbal department of the Faculty of Philosophy (graduated in 1844), where he became close to the writers A.A. Grigoriev, Ya.P. Polonsky. During the same period, he began to write and publish his poems.

Fet's first collection of poetry, "Lyrical Pantheon", was published in 1840 with the participation of Grigoriev. In 1842, publications followed in the magazines “Moskvityanin” and “Otechestvennye zapiski”. In 1845, wanting to serve the nobility, Fet entered military service in a cuirassier regiment and a year later received his first officer rank.

In 1850, a second collection of poems was published, which met with positive reviews from critics. 1853 Fet is transferred to a guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visits the capital and gets acquainted with, etc. He becomes close to the editors of the Sovremennik magazine. With their assistance, Fet's third collection appeared in 1856 (edited by Turgenev).

Having married M.P. in 1857. Botkina, the poet resigns with the rank of guards captain and becomes a successful landowner. He stopped publishing, and in 1859 he also ended his relationship with the Sovremennik magazine. Even the publication of a two-volume collection of Fet’s poems in 1863 does not change this. In 1867, Fet was elected justice of the peace for 11 years. In 1873, the nobility and the surname Shenshin were returned to him.

During the years of Fet's poetic silence, his interests are evidenced by the works of Horace, Ovid, Goethe ("Faust"), and the philosophical treatises of Schopenhauer translated into Russian. Only in his later years did Fet return to poetic creativity, releasing 4 collections of poems under the general title “Evening Lights” (1883, 1885, 1888, 1891). He also wrote memoirs “My Memories” and “The Early Years of My Life.”

Fet's romantic poetry is apolitical and alien to the interests of public life of that time (he constantly argued with Nekrasov about this). Fet keenly feels and unusually “musically” reflects in his poems the currents of existence in Russian nature, which also reflect the “landscape” of the multifaceted Russian soul. This is the main strength of the harmonious poetry of a native German by blood, who became an outstanding Russian poet.

Fet died in Moscow of a heart attack on November 21, 1892. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate.

FROM THE POEMS OF A.A. FETA

Wonderful picture
How dear you are to me:
White plain,
Full moon

The light of the high heavens,
And shining snow
And distant sleighs
Lonely running.

What a night! Everything is so blissful!
Thank you, dear midnight land!
From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow
How fresh and clean your May leaves!

What a night! Every single star
Warmly and meekly they look into the soul again,
And in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.

The birches are waiting. Their leaves are translucent
Shyly beckons and pleases the eye.
They are shaking. So to the newlywed virgin
Her attire is both joyful and alien.

No, never more tender and incorporeal
Your face, O night, could not torment me!
Again I come to you with an involuntary song,
Involuntary - and the last, perhaps.

Not so, Lord, mighty, incomprehensible
You are before my restless consciousness,
That on a starry day your bright Seraphim
A huge ball lit up the universe.
And a dead man with a flaming face
He commanded that Your laws be observed,
Awaken everything with a life-giving ray,
Preserving your ardor for centuries, millions;
No, You are powerful and incomprehensible to me
Because I myself, powerless and instantaneous,
I carry it in my chest like the Seraphim,
Fire is stronger and brighter than the entire universe,
Meanwhile, like me, the prey of vanity,
The playground of her inconstancy,
In me he is eternal, omnipresent, like You,
Knows neither time nor space.

The longer I live, the more I experience,
The more commandingly I constrain the hearts of ardor,
It’s all the more clear to me that it hasn’t happened since ages
Words that illuminate a person brighter.
Our universal Father, who is in heaven,
May we cherish Your name in our hearts,
Thy kingdom come, may your will be done
Yours, both in heaven and in the earthly vale.
Send now our daily bread from our labors,
Forgive us the debt: and we forgive the debtors,
And do not lead us, the powerless, into temptation,
And get rid of self-conceit from the evil one.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet(real name Shenshin) (1820-1892) - Russian poet, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1886).

Afanasy Fet was born December 5 (November 23, old style) 1820 in the village of Novoselki, Mtsensk district, Oryol province. He was the illegitimate son of the landowner Shenshin and at the age of fourteen, by decision of the spiritual consistory, received the surname of his mother Charlotte Fet, at the same time losing the right to nobility. Subsequently, he achieved a hereditary noble title and regained his surname Shenshin, but his literary name - Fet - remained with him forever.

Afanasy studied at the Faculty of Literature at Moscow University, here he became close to Apollo Grigoriev and was part of a circle of students who were intensely involved in philosophy and poetry. While still a student, in 1840, Fet published the first collection of his poems, “Lyrical Pantheon.” In 1845-1858 he served in the army, then acquired large lands and became a landowner. According to his convictions, A. Fet was a monarchist and a conservative.

The origin of Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet still remains unclear. According to the official version, Fet was the son of the Oryol landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin and Charlotte Elizaveta Fet, who ran away from her first husband to Russia. The divorce proceedings dragged on, and the wedding of Shenshin and Fet took place only after the birth of the boy. According to another version, his father was Charlotte-Elizabeth's first husband, Johann-Peter Feth, but the child was born in Russia and was recorded under the name of his adoptive father. One way or another, at the age of 14 the boy was declared illegitimate and deprived of all noble privileges. This event, which overnight turned the son of a wealthy Russian landowner into a rootless foreigner, had a profound impact on Fet’s entire subsequent life. Wanting to protect their son from legal proceedings regarding his origin, the parents sent the boy to a German boarding school in the city of Verro (Võru, Estonia). In 1837, he spent six months in the Moscow boarding school of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin, preparing to enter Moscow University, and in 1838 he became a student in the historical and philological department of the Faculty of Philosophy. The university environment (Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev, in whose house Fet lived throughout his studies, students Yakov Petrovich Polonsky, Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov, Konstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin, etc.) contributed in the best possible way to Fet’s development as a poet. In 1840 he published the first collection “Lyrical Pantheon A.F.” “Pantheon” did not create a particular resonance, but the collection attracted the attention of critics and opened the way to key periodicals: after its publication, Fet’s poems began to appear regularly in “Moskvityanin” and “Otechestvennye zapiski”.

You tell me: I'm sorry! I say: goodbye!

Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich

Hoping to receive a letter of nobility, in 1845 Afanasy Afanasyevich enlisted in the cuirassier order regiment, stationed in the Kherson province, with the rank of non-commissioned officer; a year later he received the rank of officer, but shortly before this it became known that from now on nobility gives only the rank of major. During the years of his Kherson service, a personal tragedy broke out in Fet’s life, which left its mark on the poet’s subsequent work. Fet's beloved, daughter of a retired general Maria Lazic, died from her burns - her dress caught fire from an inadvertently or deliberately dropped match. The suicide version seems most likely: Maria was homeless, and her marriage to Fet was impossible. In 1853, Fet was transferred to the Novgorod province, gaining the opportunity to often visit St. Petersburg. His name gradually returned to the pages of magazines, this was facilitated by new friends - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin, Vasily Petrovich Botkin, who were part of the editorial board of Sovremennik. A special role in the poet’s work was played by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, who prepared and published a new edition of Fet’s poems (1856).

In 1859, Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet received the long-awaited rank of major, but the dream of returning the nobility was not destined to come true - since 1856 this title was awarded only to colonels. Fet retired and after a long trip abroad settled in Moscow. In 1857 he married the middle-aged and ugly Maria Petrovna Botkina, receiving a substantial dowry for her, which allowed him to purchase an estate in Mtsensk district. “He has now become an agronomist - a master to the point of despair, has grown a beard down to his loins... he doesn’t want to hear about literature and scolds magazines with enthusiasm,” this is how I. S. Turgenev commented on the changes that happened to Fet. And indeed, for a long time, only accusatory articles about the post-reform state of agriculture came from the pen of the talented poet. “People don’t need my literature, and I don’t need fools,” Fet wrote in a letter to Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov, hinting at a lack of interest and misunderstanding on the part of his contemporaries, passionate about civic poetry and the ideas of populism. Contemporaries responded in kind: “All of them (Fet’s poems) are of such content that a horse could write them if it learned to write poetry,” this is the textbook assessment of Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky.

Afanasy Fet returned to literary work only in the 1880s after returning to Moscow. Now he was no longer the rootless poor man Fet, but the rich and respected nobleman Shenshin (in 1873 his dream finally came true, he received a charter of nobility and his father’s surname), a skilled Oryol landowner and owner of a mansion in Moscow. He again became close to his old friends: Polonsky, Strakhov, Solovyov. In 1881, his translation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s main work “The World as Will and Representation” was published, a year later - the first part of “Faust”, in 1883 - the works of Horace, later Decimus Junius Juvenal, Gaius Valerius Catullus, Ovid, Maron Publius Virgil, Johann Friedrich Schiller, Alfred de Musset, Heinrich Heine and other famous writers and poets. Collections of poems under the general title “Evening Lights” were published in small editions. In 1890, two volumes of memoirs “My Memoirs” appeared; the third, "The Early Years of My Life", was published posthumously in 1893.

Towards the end of his life, Fet’s physical condition became unbearable: his vision deteriorated sharply, worsening asthma was accompanied by attacks of suffocation and excruciating pain. On November 21, 1892, Fet dictated to his secretary: “I don’t understand the deliberate increase in inevitable suffering, I voluntarily go towards the inevitable.” The suicide attempt failed: the poet died earlier from apoplexy.

All of Fet's work can be considered in the dynamics of its development. The first poems of the university period tend to glorify the sensual, pagan principles. The beautiful takes on concrete, visual forms, harmonious and complete. There is no contradiction between the spiritual and carnal worlds; there is something that unites them - beauty. The search and revelation of beauty in nature and man is the main task of early Fet. Already in the first period, trends characteristic of later creativity appeared. The objective world became less clear, and shades of the emotional state and impressionistic sensations came to the fore. The expression of the inexpressible, the unconscious, music, fantasy, experience, an attempt to capture the sensual, not an object, but the impression of an object - all this determined the poetry of Afanasy Fet of the 1850-1860s. The writer's later lyricism was largely influenced by the tragic philosophy of Schopenhauer. The creativity of the 1880s was characterized by an attempt to escape into another world, the world of pure ideas and essences. In this, Fet turned out to be close to the aesthetics of the Symbolists, who considered the poet their teacher.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet died December 3 (November 21, old style) 1892, in Moscow.

“His articles, in which he advocated for the interests of the landowners, aroused the indignation of the entire progressive press. After a long break in poetic work, in his seventh decade, in the 80s Fet published a collection of poems “Evening Lights”, where his work developed from new strength.

Fet went down in the history of Russian poetry as a representative of the so-called “pure art.” He argued that beauty is the only goal of the artist. Nature and love were the main themes of Fet's works. But in this relatively narrow area his talent manifested itself with great brilliance. ...

Afanasy Fet He was especially skilled at conveying the nuances of feelings, vague, fugitive or barely emerging moods. “The ability to catch the elusive” is how criticism characterized this trait of his talent.”

Poems by Afanasy Fet

Don't wake her up at dawn
At dawn she sleeps so sweetly;
Morning breathes on her chest,
It shines brightly on the pits of the cheeks.

And her pillow is hot,
And a hot, tiring dream,
And, turning black, they run onto the shoulders
Braids with ribbon on both sides.

And yesterday at the window in the evening
She sat for a long, long time
And watched the game through the clouds,
What, sliding, the moon was up to.

And the brighter the moon played
And the louder the nightingale whistled,
She became paler and paler,
My heart beat more and more painfully.

That's why on the young chest,
This is how the morning burns on the cheeks.
Don't wake her, don't wake her...
At dawn she sleeps so sweetly!

I came to you with greetings,
Tell me that the sun has risen
What is it with hot light
The sheets began to flutter;

Tell me that the forest has woken up,
All woke up, every branch,
Every bird was startled
And full of thirst in spring;

Tell me that with the same passion,
Like yesterday, I came again,
That the soul is still the same happiness
And I’m ready to serve you;

Tell me that from everywhere
Fun is blowing over me
That I don’t know myself that I will
Sing - but only the song is ripening.

There are some sounds
And they cling to my headboard.
They are full of languid separation,
Trembling with unprecedented love.

It would seem, well? Sounded off
The last tender caress
Dust ran down the street,
The postal stroller disappeared...

And only... But the song of separation
Unrealistic teases with love,
And bright sounds rush
And they cling to my headboard.

Muse

How long did you visit my corner again?
Made you still languish and love?
Who did she embody this time?
Whose sweet speech did you manage to bribe?

Give me your hand. Sit down. Light your torch as an inspiration.
Sing, my dear! In silence I recognize your voice
And I will stand, trembling, kneeling,
Remember the poems you sang.

How sweet, forgetting the worries of life,
From pure thoughts to burn and go out,
I smell your mighty breath,
And always listen to your virgin words.

Let's go, heavenly, to my sleepless nights
More blissful dreams and glory and love,
And with a tender name, barely pronounced,
Bless my thoughtful work again.

The neighboring ravine thundered all night,
The stream, bubbling, ran to the stream,
The last pressure of the resurrected waters
He announced his victory.

You were sleeping. I opened the window
Cranes were screaming in the steppe,
And the power of thought carried away
Beyond the borders of our native land,

Fly to the vastness, off-road,
Through the forests, through the fields, -
And beneath me spring trembling
The earth was echoing.

How to trust a migratory shadow?
Why this instant illness,
When you're here; my good genius,
Trouble-experienced friend?

Learn from them - from the oak, from the birch.
It's winter all around. Cruel time!
In vain their tears froze,
And the bark cracked, shrinking.

The blizzard is getting angrier and every minute
Angrily tears up the last sheets, -
And a fierce cold grabs your heart;
They stand, silent; shut up too!

But trust in spring. A genius will rush past her,
Breathing warmth and life again.
For clear days, for new revelations
The grieving soul will get over it.

Forgive and forget everything in your cloudless hour,
Like a young moon at the height of the azure;
And they burst into external bliss more than once
The aspirations of the young frighten the storms.

When, under a cloud, it’s transparent and clean,
The dawn will tell that the day of bad weather has passed, -
You won’t find a blade of grass and you won’t find a leaf,
So that he does not cry and does not shine with happiness.

Drive away a living boat with one push
From sands smoothed by the tides,
Rise in one wave into another life,
Feel the wind from the flowering shores.

Interrupt a dreary dream with a single sound,
Suddenly revel in the unknown, dear,
Give life a sigh, give sweetness to secret torments
Instantly feel someone else’s as your own,

Whisper about something that makes your tongue go numb,
Strengthen the fight of fearless hearts -
This is what only a select few singers possess,
This is his sign and crown!

The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.
Wind. Alone in the forest
Noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun,
I won't understand anything.

Wind. Everything around is humming and swaying,
Leaves are spinning at your feet.
Chu, you can suddenly hear it in the distance
Subtly calling horn.

Sweet is the call of the copper herald to me!
The sheets are dead to me!
It seems from afar as a poor wanderer
You greet tenderly.
1891.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet - quotes

Night. You can't hear the city noise. There is a star in the sky - and from it, like a spark, a thought sank secretly into my sad heart.

Mother! Look from the window - You know, yesterday it was not for nothing that the cat washed her nose: There is no dirt, the whole yard is covered, It has brightened, it has turned white - Apparently, there is frost. Not prickly, light blue. Frost is hanging on the branches - Just look! It’s like someone with fresh, white, plump cotton wool removed everything from the bushes.

Long forgotten, under a light layer of dust, Treasured features, you are again in front of me And in an hour of mental anguish, you instantly resurrected Everything that was long, long ago lost by the soul. Burning with the fire of shame, their eyes again meet One trust, hope and love, And the faded patterns of sincere words drive blood from my heart to my cheeks.

Should I meet the bright dawn in the sky, I tell her about my secret, Should I approach the forest spring and whisper to him about the secret. And how the stars tremble in the night, I’m happy to tell them all night long; Only when I look at you, I will never say anything.

From the thin lines of the ideal, From the children's sketches of the brow, You have lost nothing, But you have suddenly gained everything. Your gaze is open and fearless, Although your soul is quiet; But yesterday’s paradise shines in it And an accomplice to sin.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet(for the first 14 and last 19 years of his life he officially bore the surname Shenshin, November 23 (December 5), 1820, Novoselki estate, Mtsensk district, Oryol province - November 21 (December 3), 1892, Moscow) - Russian lyricist poet, translator, memoirist.

Surname Fet(more precisely, Fet, German Foeth), became for the poet, as he later recalled, “the name of all his sufferings and sorrows.” Son of an Oryol landowner Afanasy Ivanovich Shenshin and Caroline Charlotte Föth, brought by him from Germany, he was recorded at birth (probably for a bribe) as the legitimate son of his parents, although he was born a month after Charlotte arrived in Russia and a year before their marriage. When he was 14 years old, an “error” in the documents was discovered, and he was deprived of his surname, nobility and Russian citizenship and became a “foreign subject Afanasy Fet” (thus, Charlotte’s first husband, the German Fet, began to be considered his father; who in reality was Afanasy's father is unknown). In 1873, he officially regained his surname Shenshin, but continued to sign his literary works and translations with the surname Fet (with an “e”).

Afanasy Afanasyevich was born on November 23, 1820 near the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province, in the village of Novoselki.

Until the age of 14, Fet lived and studied at home, and then in the city of Verro Livonia province (now Võru, Estonia), in the German private boarding house of Krümmer. In 1837 he was transported to Moscow, where Afanasy Afanasyevich studied at the boarding school of Professor Pogodin, a historian, writer, and journalist, where he entered to prepare for Moscow University. Soon Fet entered Moscow University, the Faculty of History and Philology. Almost all student time Afanasy Fet lived in the family of his university friend, the future literary critic Apollo Grigoriev, who had an influence on the development of his poetic gift.

1840 - the first collection of his poems, “Lyrical Pantheon,” is published.
Fet was given his blessing for serious literary work by Gogol, who said: “This is an undoubted talent.” Fet's first collection of poems, “Lyrical Pantheon,” was published in 1840 and received the approval of Belinsky, which inspired him to further work. Since 1842, Fet’s poems regularly appear on the pages of the magazines “Moskvityanin” and “Otechestvennye zapiski”. “Of the poets living in Moscow, Mr. Fet is the most gifted,” writes Belinsky in 1843.

In 1844 Afanasy Afanasyevich finishes his studies at Moscow University and in 1845, a budding poet, becomes a cavalryman in the cuirassier regiment of the Military Order, since the first officer rank gave the right to receive hereditary nobility. In 1853 Fet transferred to the Uhlan Guards Regiment; during the Crimean campaign he was part of the troops guarding the Estonian coast. In 1858 he retired, like his father, as a headquarters captain. Afanasy Afanasyevich, however, was not able to achieve noble rights at that time: the qualification required for this increased as Fet was promoted.

1850 - the second collection of the poet’s poems was published in Moscow. In 1856, the third book was published in St. Petersburg, attracting the attention of poetry connoisseurs and lovers.

Meanwhile, his poetic fame grew. The success of the third book, “Poems by A. Fet,” published in Moscow in 1850, gave him access to the Sovremennik circle in St. Petersburg, where he met Turgenev and V.P. Botkin. Later Afanasy Fet met L.N. Tolstoy, who returned from Sevastopol. The Sovremennik circle jointly selected, edited and beautifully published a new collection of “Poems by A.A. Feta” (St. Petersburg, 1856). In 1863, it was republished by Soldatenkov in two volumes, and the 2nd volume included translations of Horace and others.

In 1857, Afanasy Afanasyevich married Marya Petrovna Botkina, sister of the doctor S.P. Botkin, in Paris. Literary successes prompted Feta leave military service and in 1858 the poet resigns with the rank of guards captain and settles in Moscow.

In 1860, Afanasy Afanasyevich bought the Stepanovka farm with 200 acres of land, in Mtsensk district, and energetically began to manage it, living there all the time and only visiting Moscow briefly in winter. For more than ten years (1867 - 1877) Fet was a justice of the peace and at that time wrote magazine articles in “Russian Bulletin” about rural order (“From the Village”), where he showed himself to be such a convinced and tenacious Russian “agrarian” that he soon received the nickname “serf owner” from the populist press. Afanasy Fet turned out to be an excellent owner; in 1877 he left Stepanovka and bought the Vorobyovka estate in Shchigrovsky district, Kursk province, near Korennaya Pustyn for 105,000 rubles. At the end of his life, Fet's fortune reached a level that can be called wealth. In 1873, the surname Shenshin was approved for Fet with all the rights associated with it. I.S. immediately responded to this. Turgenev: “Like Fet you had a name, like Shenshin you only have a surname.”

In 1881 Shenshin bought a house in Moscow and began to come to Vorobyovka in the spring and summer as a summer resident, renting out the farm to the manager. At this time of contentment and honor, Afanasy Afanasyevich with new energy began to write original and translated poetry, and memoirs. He published in Moscow: four collections of lyrical poems “Evening Lights” (1883, 1885, 1888, 1891) and translations of Horace (1883), Juvenal (1885), Catullus (1886), Tibullus (1886), Ovid (1887), Virgil (1888), Propertius (1889), Persia (1889) and Martial (1891); translation of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1882 and 1888); wrote a memoir, “The Early Years of My Life, Before 1848.” (posthumous edition, 1893) and “My Memoirs, 1848 - 1889.” (in two volumes, 1890); translation of the works of A. Schopenhauer: “On the Fourth Root of the Law of Sufficient Reason” and “On the Will in Nature” (1886) and “The World as Will and Idea” (2nd edition - 1888).

On January 28 and 29, 1889, the anniversary of Fet’s 50-year literary activity was solemnly celebrated in Moscow; soon after that he was granted the title of chamberlain by the Highest. Afanasy Afanasyevich died on November 21, 1892 in Moscow, two days shy of 72 years old. He was buried in the Shenshin family estate, the village of Kleimenov, in Mtsensk district, 25 versts from Orel.

Creation Feta characterized by the desire to escape from everyday reality into the “bright kingdom of dreams.” The main content of his poetry is love and nature. His poems are distinguished by the subtlety of their poetic mood and great artistic skill.

Fet is expressive and accurate when depicting pictures of nature in different seasons, in each of which he finds a unique charm. Even in pictures of fading nature, the poet sees beauty that gives rise to bright, life-affirming feelings. This is felt in such poems as, “The leaves trembled, flying around ...”, etc. Fet’s nature is inhabited by living creatures, not only traditional for poetry (nightingale, eagle, swan), but also, perhaps, for the first time in the lyrical landscape (lapwing, sandpiper). The accuracy and concreteness of landscapes is largely due to the achievements of Russian realistic prose (Turgenev and L. Tolstoy, first of all). Poeticization of the beauties of nature is one of the merits of Feta the lyricist to Russian literature. Poetry Feta about nature have long become textbooks.

Another, no less significant merit Feta- an image of deep love feeling. His love lyrics are characterized by tragedy and deep psychologism. At the same time, Fet’s images of the hero and heroine lack social and everyday definition. It is not without reason that the style of his love poems is so characterized by the technique when a portrait or psychological detail appears as part of the whole. “Part running to the left”, “children’s tears”, “features not made by hands”, “curves of a close soul”, “torments of a sinless soul”, “instant image” are signs of the heroine.