Placing the Poet in the Prose Autobiographies of Ivan Dmitriev and Gavrila Derzhavin

Abstract

Ivan Dmitriev has virtually disappeared from memory, but in the late eighteenth century he was known as one of Russia’s foremost poets. What even fewer readers know is that Dmitriev’s most significant contribution to Russia’s literary heritage may have been his decision to make poetry the centre of his prose autobiography. In the literary and social context of the 1810s and 20s, this was a remarkable step because it showed Dmitriev’s conviction that poetry had an inherent value that earned it a place in the narrative formulation of one’s “life plot.” Dmitriev’s approach is even more remarkable when his autobiography is compared to the prose autobiography of Gavrila Derzhavin, the greatest poet of his time. Derzhavin’s autobiography ignores poetry almost completely, and usually refers to the author’s literary endeavours only when they intersect with the dominant thread of his political life. This article looks at the social and literary contexts in which these autobiographical texts were written, and then examines closely the style and substance of each text to explore the way each poet creates his own life story. This comparison shows that the great poet Derzhavin depicts himself almost exclusively as a statesman, and it is the long-forgotten Dmitriev who reveals a profound allegiance to poetry as the most important part of his life.