Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

Starting out as a pensive lyric poet, Zhukovsky, to the surprise of many (and perhaps himself), confidently moved to the unofficial spot of number one state poet, replacing the elderly Derzhavin. In his “Bard in the Camp of Russian Warriors,” Zhukovsky came up with an apt poetic description of the political and mythos-making role of culture: “Bards are allies of leaders; / their songs give life to victories.” In his epistle “To Emperor Alexander” we find another important aphorism, “The voice of the lyre is the voice of the people,” which delighted the young Pushkin.

In his verse, Zhukovsky praised “the Blessed” but also gave his monarch bold and unusual advice, all the more prescient because it was later echoed in the thoughts, fate, and posthumous legend of Alexander I:

Leave for a time your magnificent throne—

The royal throne is surrounded with unfaithful praise—

Cover your royal brilliance, alone enter

The crowd, and listen to the murmur.

Pushkin knew this poem (and many others by Zhukovsky) by heart, and even ten years later proudly commented, “This is how a Russian poet speaks to the tsar.”

“To Emperor Alexander” became Zhukovsky’s pass into the imperial palace, turning him into “the new state poet, probably the last in the empire’s history and certainly the last to be accepted in equal measure by the authorities and by educated society.”¹

It was a remarkably intricate political and cultural dance, with the poet and the court taking careful steps toward each other, wary of appearing vain, silly, vulgar, or insincere. The initiator of the rapprochement with Zhukovsky was the royal family: back in the spring of 1813, the widow of Paul I, Maria Fedorovna, rewarded Zhukovsky for his “Bard in the Camp of Russian Warriors” with an expensive ring and ordered a special edition of the poem.

On his part, Zhukovsky wrote the epistle to Alexander with great care, unlike “Bard,” which was written in the field and almost as an improvisation. This time Zhukovsky intended “to add his name to Alexander’s monument,” as he put it.

The poem was not presented directly to Alexander. First Zhukovsky sent it to his mother, the dowager empress, through his friends at court. Even though at first she had blamed her son for Paul’s assassination, she and her circle now acted as the tsar’s cultural advisers.

A cautious step-by-step procedure ensued. First Maria Fedorovna heard Zhukovsky’s ode in a small family circle (the grand dukes and duchesses), read aloud by one of the courtiers, while she followed along with a copy in her hand. Everyone was delighted: “Marvelous! Excellent! C’est sublime!” When the family circle decided that Alexander, “who floats above flattery,” would “feel the power of the poet’s genius,” another copy of Zhukovsky’s poem was sent to the emperor in Vienna.²

At the same time, the empress invited Zhukovsky to her residence in Pavlovsk, outside St. Petersburg, in order to meet him. He lived there for three days, and on the first he read his ballads to a small circle, while at the next, reading for a larger group, he declaimed “A Bard in the Camp of Russian Warriors” and “To Emperor Alexander.”

Zhukovsky and his manner of reading charmed Maria Fedorovna; as a memoirist noted, “to know Zhukovsky and not love him was impossible,” he was “a combination of child and angel.”³

The result was an invitation for Zhukovsky to accept the coveted post of “reader to the empress” (yet another important step up the court hierarchical ladder). This impressed Alexander. He also knew that Zhukovsky had received the rank of staff captain and the Order of St. Anna, Second Degree, for the war against Napoleon: that is, he had proven his loyalty not only in poetry but in action.

An imperial decree on December 30, 1816, was a formal response to the gift edition of Zhukovsky’s poems accompanied by a letter from the poet. The decree read: “To the minister of finances. Observing attentively the work and gifts of the prominent writer, Staff Captain Vassily Zhukovsky, who has enriched our literature with excellent works, many of which are devoted to the glory of the Russian forces, I order that as a sign of my good will and to provide him the financial security needed for his work to give him a pension of four thousand rubles a year from the state treasury. Alexander.”⁴

There was more. In 1817, Zhukovsky was asked to teach Russian to the bride of Grand Duke Nicholas (the future Emperor Nicholas I), the Prussian princess Charlotte, who upon converting to Russian Orthodoxy took the name Alexandra Fedorovna. Zhukovsky, who spoke German fluently, was expected to work with her for an hour every day on Russian language and literature. The rest of the time Zhukovsky was free, and his salary was 3,000 rubles from Alexander and 2,000 from the duke, as well as a free apartment in his palace.