Fyodor Tyutchev
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev entered the world in 1803 at the Ovstug family estate near Bryansk. His father Ivan Nikolaevich Tyutchev served as a court councillor within the Kremlin Expedition, managing all building and restoration works for Moscow palaces. One of Ivan's sisters was Princess Yevdokia Nikolaevna Meshcherskaya, who founded the Borisoglebsky Anosin Women's Monastery. The Tyutchev family traced their roots to Zakhariy Tutchev mentioned in The Tale of the Rout of Mamai, a 15th-century epic about the Battle of Kulikovo. Zakhariy acted as a trusted messenger to Mamai during that conflict and returned alive thanks to his diplomatic skills. Fyodor's mother Countess Ekaterina Lvovna Tolstaya belonged to the Tolstoy family on her father's side and the Rimsky-Korsakov noble house on her mother's side. Russian war general Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov was her uncle.
Most of his childhood years were spent in Moscow where he joined the literary circle of Professor Merzlyakov at age 13. His first printed work appeared when he was still 15 as a translation of Horace's epistle to Maecenas. From that time onward his poetic language distinguished itself from Pushkin and other contemporaries through its liberal use of majestic Slavonic archaisms. A family tutor named Semyon Raich guided Tyutchev's early poetic steps while serving as a minor poet and translator himself. Between 1819 and 1821 Tyutchev studied at the Philological Faculty of Moscow University before graduating.
After graduating from university Tyutchev joined the Foreign Office and accompanied his relative Count Ostermann-Tolstoy to Munich in 1822. He took up a post as trainee diplomat at the Russian legation and remained abroad for twenty-two years total. In Munich he fell in love with Amalie von Lerchenfeld, the illegitimate half-sister of Bavarian diplomat Count Maximilian Joseph von Lerchenfeld. Their relationship produced poems like Tears or Slyozy which coincides with one of their meetings and is most likely dedicated to her.
Published extracts from letters and diaries of Maximilian von Lerchenfeld illuminate details of this frustrated love affair during the first years of Tyutchev's diplomatic service. The conflict nearly involved a duel in January 1825 probably between Tyutchev and his colleague Baron Alexander von Krüdener. Amélie was coerced by relatives into marrying the much older Krüdener though she and Tyutchev continued to be friends. They frequented the same diplomatic society in Munich until Tyutchev's final meeting with her on the 31st of March 1873 when she visited him on his deathbed.
Tyutchev came under the influence of the German Romantic movement while living there. Among figures he knew personally were poet Heinrich Heine and philosopher Friedrich Schelling. In 1826 he married Eleonore Peterson née Countess von Bothmer who became the mother of his daughter Anna Tyutcheva. Following her death in 1838 Tyutchev married another aristocratic young German widow named Baroness Ernestine von Dörnberg.
In 1850 Fyodor began an illicit affair with Elena Denisyeva over twenty years his junior. She remained his mistress until her death from tuberculosis in 1864 and they had three children together. This relationship produced a body of lyrics rightly considered among the finest love poems in the Russian language. Permeated with a sublime feeling of subdued despair the so-called Denisyeva Cycle has been described by critics as a novel in verse or a human document shattering in the force of its emotion.
One poem titled Last Love is often cited as emblematic of the whole cycle. Critics have called these works a few songs without comparison in Russian perhaps even in world poetry. The emotional intensity of these pieces stands apart from his other output which included occasional pieces translations and political poems constituting about half his overall poetical work. The remaining two hundred lyric pieces represent the core of his poetic genius whether describing scenes of nature or passions of love.
Tyutchev regarded his poems as bagatelles not worthy of publication during his lifetime. He generally did not care to write them down and if he did he would often lose papers they were scribbled upon. It was only in 1854 that his first volume of verse was printed prepared by Ivan Turgenev and others without any help from the author himself.
Tyutchev operated as a militant Pan-Slavist who never needed a particular reason to berate Western powers the Vatican Ottoman Empire or Poland. He perceived Poland as a Judas within the Slavic fold while criticizing the failure of the Crimean War made him look critically at the Russian government itself. On domestic matters he held broadly liberal views and warmly welcomed most reforms of Tsar Alexander II particularly the Emancipation Reform of 1861.
Both in his work as a censor and in his writings he promoted the ideal of freedom of expression frequently incurring the wrath of superiors even under the more relaxed regime of Alexander II. Upon returning to Russia in 1844 Tyutchev was reinstated in government service as a censor rising eventually to become Chairman of the Foreign Censorship Committee and a Privy Councillor. His fairly sizeable output of verse on political subjects is largely forgotten today except for one short poem which has become something of a popular maxim in Russia.
He loved to travel often volunteering for diplomatic courier missions as a way of combining business with pleasure. One of his lengthiest and most significant missions took him to newly independent Greece in autumn 1833. Tours undertaken in private capacity later took him to many parts of continental Europe including Italy France Germany Austria and Switzerland.
Tyutchev's world operates as bipolar where he commonly uses categories like night and day north and south dream and reality cosmos and chaos. Each image carries specific meaning within his poetic framework. Critics defined his idea of night as the poetic image covering economically and simply vast notions of time and space affecting man in his struggle through life.
In the chaotic fathomless world of night winter or north man feels himself tragically abandoned and lonely. A modernist sense of frightening anxiety permeates his poetry throughout these metaphysical explorations. Silentium stands as an archetypal poem written in 1830 remarkable for its rhythm crafted so reading in silence becomes easier than aloud toward others.
As one Russian critic noted the temporal epochs of human life past and present fluctuate and vacillate in equal measure while the unstoppable current of time erodes the outline of the present. Tyutchev's images are anthropomorphic and pulsing with pantheism. He wrote that a thought once uttered is untrue and dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred. Drink at the source and speak no word remains a central theme across many of his works.
It was not until late nineteenth and early twentieth century that Tyutchev was rediscovered and hailed as a great poet by Russian Symbolists such as Vladimir Solovyov Andrey Bely and Alexander Blok. During his lifetime he remained little known despite producing four hundred short poems which were the only pieces he ever wrote in Russian. Nikolay Nekrasov praised him in 1850 as one of the most talented among minor poets but public interest failed to spark initially.
The deaths of his brother son and daughter left Tyutchev deeply depressed during the early 1870s following a series of strokes. He died in Tsarskoye Selo in 1873 and was interred at Novodevichy Monastery in St Petersburg. Ernestine survived him by twenty-one years after his passing. His work gained renewed appreciation decades later through these Symbolist movements who recognized the depth within his metaphysical themes and nature imagery.
This poem inspired an early-twentieth-century composer Georgi Catoire with his setting titled Silentium while another of Tyutchev's poems O chem ty voesh' vetr nochnoy served as inspiration for Nikolai Medtner's Night Wind piano sonata number seven of 1911. There is a well-known setting by Rakhmaninov of Tyutchev's poem Spring Waters alongside other musical interpretations spanning multiple generations of composers.
Nikolai Myaskovsky borrowed the title Silence from Tyutchev for his 1910 tone though the actual inspiration credits Edgar Allan Poe instead. The same poem received settings from twentieth-century Russian composer Boris Tchaikovsky in his 1974 cantata Signs of the Zodiac. Composer Lyubov Streicher set Tyutchev's text to music in her Romances while Ukrainian composer Valentina Ramm did likewise.
Ukrainian composer Valentyn Sylvestrov born 1937 made a memorable setting of Last Love recorded by Alexi Lubimov and Jana Ivanilova on album Stufen. Julian Cochran set two of Tyutchev's night-related poems The Night Wind and The Night Sea for soprano and piano. At the end of Andrey Tarkovsky's film Stalker a character recites one of Tyutchev's poems cementing his enduring cultural presence.
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Common questions
When and where was Fyodor Tyutchev born?
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev entered the world in 1803 at the Ovstug family estate near Bryansk. His father Ivan Nikolaevich Tyutchev served as a court councillor within the Kremlin Expedition managing all building and restoration works for Moscow palaces.
Who were the parents of Fyodor Tyutchev?
His mother Countess Ekaterina Lvovna Tolstaya belonged to the Tolstoy family on her father's side and the Rimsky-Korsakov noble house on her mother's side. Russian war general Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov was her uncle.
What happened during Fyodor Tyutchev's diplomatic service in Munich?
He took up a post as trainee diplomat at the Russian legation and remained abroad for twenty-two years total. In Munich he fell in love with Amalie von Lerchenfeld whose relationship produced poems like Tears or Slyozy which coincides with one of their meetings.
Why is the Denisyeva Cycle significant in Fyodor Tyutchev's work?
This relationship produced a body of lyrics rightly considered among the finest love poems in the Russian language. Permeated with a sublime feeling of subdued despair the so-called Denisyeva Cycle has been described by critics as a novel in verse or a human document shattering in the force of its emotion.
When did Fyodor Tyutchev die and where was he buried?
He died in Tsarskoye Selo in 1873 and was interred at Novodevichy Monastery in St Petersburg. Ernestine survived him by twenty-one years after his passing.