Venevitinov, Dmitrii Vladimirovich

Born Sept. 14 (26), 1805, in Moscow; died Mar. 15 (27), 1827, in St. Petersburg; buried in Moscow. Russian poet and critic. Born into a family of the nobility. Received a good home education. Passed examinations in Moscow University in 1824. Served in the Moscow archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. Transferred to St. Petersburg in 1826.

Venevitinov’s extraordinary gifts became evident very early. He was a representative of the so-called liubomudry (lovers of wisdom). Philosophically, his views were close to the natural philosophy of F. Schelling. His political sympathies were on the side of bourgeois democratic liberties, and this made him sympathetic to the Decembrist movement.

The romantic poetry of D. V. Venevitinov was filled with philosophical motifs and reflected freethinking ideas. Many of his poems were devoted to the high calling of poetry and the poet and to the cult of friendship, which Venevitinov elevated to all-embracing love for his fellow man. He translated the works of E. T. A. Hoffman, J. W. Goethe, and others. N. G. Chernyshevskii wrote that “had Venevitinov lived even ten years longer, he would have moved our literature ahead by entire decades” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 2, 1949, p. 926).