Biography

Born into the family of candle merchant Savva Evtikhievich Nikitin (1793-1864). He studied at the Voronezh Theological Seminary. The seminary gave Nikitin a lot, but the young man did not like the official and boring education system, and he would later express his attitude towards this way of life in “The Diaries of a Seminarist” (1861).

In 1844, Nikitin’s father bought an inn on Kirochnaya Street and settled here with his son and family. However, his father's drunkenness and violent character led the family to ruin, forcing Nikitin to leave the seminary and become an innkeeper.

After the first publications Nikitin entered the circle of local intelligentsia that formed around Nikolai Ivanovich Vtorov. Close friends Nikitina became Vtorov himself and another member of the circle, Mikhail Fedorovich De-Pule (future executor, biographer and editor of publications of Nikitin’s works).

Remaining the owner of the inn, Nikitin He did a lot of self-education, studying French and German, as well as the works of Russian and foreign writers (Shakespeare, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo and others). In 1859, Nikitin took advantage of a loan of 3,000 rubles, received through the mediation of friends from the famous entrepreneur and philanthropist Vasily Aleksandrovich Kokorev, and opened a bookstore with a reading room in the center of Voronezh, which quickly became one of the centers of the cultural life of the city.

Died Nikitin from consumption on October 16, 1861 in Voronezh, where he was buried. Over time, the cemetery was liquidated and a circus was built in its place. The grave of I. S. Nikitin and several other graves, one of which is the burial of another famous poet A. V. Koltsov, were not touched. This place is fenced and is called the “Literary Necropolis”.

Poems

Hours, weeks and years pass...
There are bright moments...
Spring in the steppe
The evening is clear and quiet...
Eternity
A deep hole was dug with a spade...
Grandfather
I look forward to meeting you day and night...
Village poor
Child
Life
How easy it is for me...
To slanderers
When the sunset's farewell rays...
When alone, in moments of reflection...
Forest
Time moves slowly...
Prayer
Monastery
The sun is burning in the west...
Don't cry, my friend!
Don't repeat the cold reproach.
An irreplaceable, priceless loss!
Beggar
Night
Turn
Bobyl's song
Our time is dying shamefully!
I was joking...
Ruins
Conversations
Rus
The harsh cold of a strict life...
Yearning
We, brothers, bear a heavy cross...
Privacy
Wasn’t it me, my dear, who begged you...
We got along a little - we recognized each other...
South and North

The work of Ivan Nikitin arouses sincere interest among admirers of real deep poetry.

Nikitin Ivan Savvich is a poet-nugget who loved nature since childhood and sang its beauty. The works of Ivan Savvich went through a large number of editions and were sold in a huge number of copies.

The original poet vividly describes the spirit of that distant time. In poetic creativity, the poet strives to comprehend his existence, expresses a feeling of dissatisfaction with his own existence and suffers greatly from the discrepancy with the existing reality. The poet found peace in nature and religion, which temporarily reconciled him with life.

From the biography of Nikitin Ivan Savvich:

Ivan Savvich Nikitin was born on October 3 (September 21), 1824 in the city of Voronezh. His father, Savva Evstikhievich Nikitin, came from a clergy background, was a wealthy tradesman, traded in a candle shop and ran a candle factory.

Ivan Nikitin spent his childhood and youth surrounded by pilgrims who bought candles in the shop.

Little Ivan mastered reading and writing early. A neighbor who was a shoemaker helped him with this. Only after learning to add letters did Ivan begin to compose his first poems. He never found support and approval for his creativity from his father, who was an adherent of bourgeois views. As a child, Vanya read a lot and loved being in nature, with which he felt unity from birth.

House in Voronezh, where I. S. Nikitin lived with his father

When Ivan was eight years old, his father sent him to the Voronezh Theological School. After graduating from college (1839), he expressed a desire to be a priest and entered the theological seminary. (1839), from which he was expelled for absenteeism (1843). Nikitin, as the son of wealthy parents, was a free student at the seminary and retained his independence and broad-mindedness. The seminary played a big role in the development of the poet, but he was not satisfied with the existing education system and the practices adopted there. Later he would write about this in “The Diaries of a Seminary” (1861), where he reflected the unhappy impressions of his stay at the seminary. Ivan Nikitin dreamed of studying at the university.

Ivan Nikitin never managed to finish the seminary. His father's difficult character and drunkenness ultimately ended in ruin. Then his mother Praskovya Ivanovna died, his means of livelihood dried up, his dreams of entering the university turned out to be unrealistic, and Nikitin was forced first to trade in a candle shop, then to maintain an inn (since 1844), which was purchased in place of the sold candle factory.

Ivan also had to do menial work, including sweeping the yard. Then I had to pay off the accumulated debts for a long time. But despite everything, the aspiring poet did not abandon his passion for literature and continued to write poetry.

He constantly spends more than ten years communicating with visiting people who represented different social groups and classes.

The difficulties of Nikitin’s life, who worked at an inn as a janitor, his difficult, monotonous life, its difficult circumstances did not break the young man, he did not sink spiritually, in every free moment he tried to read books, write poems that asked to come out of his heart.

While still studying at the seminary, Nikitin became seriously interested in poetry and composed a lot himself. His passion for literature opened up new horizons for him; he managed to break out of the philistine worldview and gain inner freedom. Nikitin communicated closely with the people, grew up in the atmosphere of folk dialects from different places in Russia, listened to the stories and tales of wanderers, the lives of saints and spiritual poems. In his youth, he was fond of Pushkin, Zhukovsky and other classics. From the church walls he brought out a reverent attitude towards nature. Despite the fact that by that time the seminary no longer had wonderful teachers - A.V. Koltsova and A.P. Serebryansky—the seminarians were nourished by the memories of their circle. Nikitin wrote his first poems precisely in imitation of Koltsov.

Since 1853, Nikitin's rapprochement with the historian, ethnographer and public figure N.I. Vtorov and his circle, which united representatives of the Voronezh intelligentsia, began. It was Vtorov who inspired Ivan Nikitin for the first publication in the Voronezh Provincial Gazette on November 21, 1853 of the poem “Rus”, written during the beginning of the Crimean War and its patriotic content was very topical.

Captivated by Nikitin’s work, N.I. Vtorov introduced him to the circle of local intelligentsia, introduced him to Count D.N. Tolstoy, who published the poet’s poems in “Moskvityanin” and published his first collection as a separate edition in St. Petersburg (1856).

The poet's popularity at that time was growing, but he still lived hard. My father drank heavily, although family relations improved a little; The atmosphere of the inn was no longer so depressing for the young man, who moved in a circle of intelligent people who were sincerely disposed towards him.

But Nikitin began to be overcome by illness. In 1855, Ivan Nikitin became very ill, catching a cold while swimming. The illness dragged on and developed into consumption.

In 1856, Nikitin became interested in the governess of the Plotnikov landowners. The girl's name was M.I. Junot. The feelings were mutual, the girl had an ebullient nature, developed and sensitive to poetry. They did not advertise their feelings.

Bookstore of I. S. Nikitin

In 1859, the poet, thanks to the assistance of friends, took out a loan in the amount of three thousand rubles, since his own fees were not enough to realize his plan. Being a man of action, I. Nikitin in February 1859, with this money, he opened a bookstore in Voronezh, and with it a shop and a library. Soon the store turned from an ordinary retail outlet into a noticeable center of culture, the likes of which had never been seen in the city. This allowed it to become one of the main cultural centers in Voronezh. +In 1861, Nikitin visited St. Petersburg and Moscow, took part in local cultural work, in the formation of a literacy society in Voronezh, as well as in the establishment of Sunday schools.

In the early 60s, N. A. Nekrasov invited the poet to collaborate in the Sovremennik magazine. This was a real recognition, but I. Nikitin could no longer take advantage of the invitation. A serious illness undermined the poet’s strength.

In May 1861, the poet again caught a bad cold, which caused an exacerbation of the tuberculosis process and a sharp deterioration in his general health. The tuberculosis process has accelerated significantly. The level of medicine in those years left virtually no hope for recovery.

The poet died on October 16 of the same year at the age of only 37 years. He was buried in Voronezh, at the Novo-Mitrofanyevskoye cemetery, where the poet lived his entire short life.

The creative heritage of I. S. Nikitin and his contribution to Russian literature:

A wonderful Russian poet lived during the time of Tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century in the difficult pre-reform period. This circumstance had a huge impact on the development of his talent and on all his work.

Ivan began writing poetic lines while still in the seminary, and decided to publish his creations only in 1853. They were published in the Voronezh Provincial Gazette when the young man was 29 years old. Patriotic pathetic poems were reprinted in other newspapers and magazines; they were very useful, since the Crimean War was going on. The author's works were copied and passed from hand to hand, and began to be published in Otechestvennye Zapiski and Library for Reading.

In the summer of 1855, Nikitin fell ill, catching a cold while swimming. Faith saved him, and many poems with religious themes appeared. The theme of human faith runs like a red thread through all of Ivan Nikitin’s poetic work: “New Testament”, “Prayer”, “The Sweetness of Prayer”, “Prayer for the Cup”. Seeing holy grace in everything, Nikitin became the most soulful singer of nature (“Morning”, “Spring in the Steppe”, “Meeting of Winter”) and enriched Russian poetry with a large number of masterpieces of landscape lyricism.

Soon the first collection of poems was published (1856) and Nikitin began to be compared with Koltsov.

Then Nikitin wrote the poem “Fist”, which was completed in 1857. He showed in the poem the type of person who strongly resembled his own father. Voronezh tradesman Karp Lukich, the hero of the poem, lived by petty deception, calculation and measurement. He is a reseller, a penniless and ruined merchant himself, who cannot get out of severe poverty. As a result of this life, he became a drunkard and tyrannized everyone in the house. The poem was received favorably by critics and the book sold out in less than a year, bringing the poet a good income. Despite his painful condition and depressed mood, Nikitin continued to closely follow Russian literature in 1857-1858. From abroad I read Shakespeare, Cooper, Goethe, Hugo, Chenier. He also began to study German, translating Heine and Schiller. In 1857-1858 he worked in Otechestvennye zapiski and Russian Conversation. At this time, the inn began to generate income, and the family came out of poverty. The father did not stop drinking, but relations in the family improved, work was no longer so burdensome for Nikitin.

Nikitin received an excellent review from Dobrolyubov for his poem. The poet was introduced to Count D.N. Tolstoy, who helped him get published.

The second collection appeared in 1859. Nikitin became a master of Russian landscape and successor to Koltsov, a glorifier of hard peasant labor, the life of the urban poor and the injustice of the world. Nikitin's name thundered, but life was still hard.

In the second half of 1860 Nikitin worked a lot. Soon, in 1861, his prose “Diary of a Seminarian” was published.

The original and most essential feature of Nikitin’s poetry is truthfulness and simplicity, reaching the most strict direct reproduction of everyday prose. Almost all of Nikitin’s poems fall into two large blocks: some are dedicated to nature (“South and North” (1851) “Morning” (1854)), others are dedicated to human need, people’s suffering (“Plowman” (1856), “The Coachman’s Wife” ( 1854)). In both, the poet is completely free from any effects and idle eloquence.

From early childhood, he was familiar with the life of the common people and serfs, filled with hardships and suffering. All his creations fully reflect the lack of rights, hopelessness, need and hard work of people from the lower classes, to which the vast majority of the Russian population belonged. The poet sincerely sympathized with representatives of these classes and treated them in accordance with Christian traditions, supporting those in need not only with a kind word, but also providing them with real help. The main part of the writer’s work is poetic landscape lyrics, which, among other things, contains a religious slant and has a philosophical orientation. In its creative style it is a successor to the traditions laid down by Koltsov.

His ability to subtly sense the world around him and sing the refined shades of colors is amazing. He was able to describe the world around him with inspiration and piercing sensitivity with just one stroke of the pen. In his poems there is a true love for nature; in his work the poet showed himself to be a talented landscape painter. Love for the people is one of the main themes in Nikitin’s work.

A significant place in the work of the poet, who sincerely worried about his people and passed their troubles through his own heart, is occupied by poems depicting the life of an ordinary commoner (“The Coachman’s Wife,” “The Plowman,” “Mother and Daughter,” “Beggar,” “Street Meeting” ). They clearly express deep, sincere love for their people, warm sympathy for their plight and a great desire to improve their situation.

At the same time, Nikitin did not idealize the people, looking at them with sober eyes, he painted them truthfully, without hiding the dark sides and negative traits of the people’s character: family despotism, rudeness (“Damage”, “Stubborn Father”, “Divide”).

Nikitin's panoramic vision covered all aspects of Russian life.

Nikitin’s work contains a lot of autobiographical elements with predominant sad tones, sadness and grief, also caused by a protracted illness. The source of such aching sadness was not only personal adversity, but also the surrounding life with human suffering, social contrasts, and constant drama. Nikitin was a member of the circle of local Voronezh intelligentsia, it was the circle of Nikolai Ivanovich Vtorov. But Vtorov soon left Voronezh. Nikitin's second friend was Mikhail Fedorovich De-Pule. It was he who, after Nikitin’s death, became his executor; he published his legacy, wrote a biography and edited Nikitin’s works.

During his short life, Nikitin wrote about two hundred beautiful poems, three poems and a story.

Nikitin's works are superbly set to music and have served as a source of inspiration for many Russian composers. Over 60 wonderful songs and romances were composed based on Nikitin’s poems, many of which became popular. There are songs that have turned into folk songs. Perhaps the most famous of them is “Uhar-merchant”. Here, however, it should be noted that the text of the folk version of the song has undergone significant changes that influenced the original semantic content.

Nikitin was and remains an unsurpassed singer of Russian nature. The name of Ivan Nikitin entered the musical culture of Russia; his name has outlived many, larger, but forgotten poets.

Memory of the original Russian poet:

*In 1924 in Voronezh, in the house in which Ivan Nikitin lived since 1846, the Nikitin Literary Memorial House-Museum was founded.

*One of the Voronezh gymnasiums is named after the poet.

*In the USSR, postage stamps with Nikitin’s image were issued.

*Streets in Voronezh, Lipetsk, Novosibirsk are named after Ivan Nikitin.

*On Nikitinskaya Square in Voronezh in 1911, a monument to the poet was unveiled, the design of which was developed by sculptor I.A. Shuklin.

*In 2011, the Russian Post released a circulation of postcards depicting the above-mentioned monument to the poet in Voronezh.

In the history of Russian literature there are “quiet” names, names of writers and poets of the second rank, who are sometimes overshadowed by noisy “pop poetry”, sometimes by modernists with claims to genius. Time passes and puts everyone in their place. It turns out that in modernity there were, to put it in Yesenin’s language, a lot of “broken and deceitful gestures”, and behind the noise there was absolutely nothing worthwhile. But the power of true talent passes through decades and continues to be felt for a long time. Especially when the artist’s very talent comes from the earth, from the soil, from a deep awareness of his blood connection with the fate of the entire people. This was the case with our contemporary Nikolai Rubtsov, and also, even earlier, with Alexei Koltsov and Ivan Nikitin. We have been learning the last lines about winter since elementary school...

Biography of Ivan Nikitin (1824 - 1861)

Voronezh... The land that gave the world and Russia two great sons - Alexei Koltsov and Ivan Nikitin. However, he served his exile here in the 30s. of the last century, the poet O. Mandelstam, who left an eloquent confession about this: “I am near Koltsov, Like a falcon, looped ...” We are talking about external lack of freedom. Only Koltsov and Nikitin were hardly free to the end. Both were oppressed by the need to engage in hated trading, because there were simply no other sources of income. Living in Russia for a writer on royalties from his works is a luxury that falls to a very select few.

Until the end of his short life, Nikitin remained the son of the time, the century and a representative of the merchant class. The last one is worth special mention. In the Soviet years, they didn’t really like to advertise the fact that the first generation of Russian merchants came out of the Old Believers. And there were large families, loyalty to traditions, a love of work from a young age. And the first Russian merchants did not consider it shameful for themselves to plow, sow, mow, and drink vodka with the common people, for they always remembered from what lows they themselves had risen. Subsequently, the merchants turned into bourgeois, and ties with the past weakened.

The father of the future poet was a candle merchant who went bankrupt due to a tendency to drink and a violent temper. Nikitin did not receive a systematic education; he was forced to leave his studies at the seminary and become the owner of an inn, which brought a small but constant source of income. Nikitin tried to make up for the shortcomings of his education by intensive self-education, in which he succeeded a lot. Towards the end of his life, with a loan received from local philanthropist Kokorev, Nikitin was able to open a bookstore with a reading room in Voronezh. They quickly became the cultural center of the province.

Looking at Nikitin’s photograph and knowing that he passed away at the classic, fatal age for a Russian (and not only) poet - 37 years old, it is difficult to get rid of the thought that he looks much older than his years. Not only his beard aged him, but also the hardships he endured in childhood, the need to fight for every piece of bread. In those days, people generally grew up and aged, apparently much faster than now... Consumption (aka tuberculosis) was considered an incurable disease. She brought Nikitin to the grave. He is buried next to Koltsov, which has deep truth and symbolism. However, more on this below.

Works of Ivan Nikitin

Nikitin's early poems inevitably had an imitative character and are now of interest only to literary historians. In search of his voice, he turned to folklore and the experience of his predecessors. And among them was not only fellow countryman Alexey Koltsov. A.I. Neledinsky-Meletsky and A.F. Merzlyakov, then Pushkin’s lyceum friend Anton Delvig tried to root the genre of “Russian song” in Russian literature. So Koltsov already had whose experience to take into account. Not all of the poems that had the title “Russian Song” actually became songs and went to the people. The latter has a sensitive ear, it immediately and unmistakably picks up the slightest falsehood, deviation from authenticity, artlessness of folk versification.

During his lifetime, Nikitin managed to publish two collections of poetry. They evoked the most contradictory responses, which, however, is natural - there were those who accepted the poet’s work, and those who treated him as imitative and even weak. As noted above, Nikitin enters the reader’s consciousness primarily as a singer of his native nature and, secondly, as a writer of everyday life of the difficult peasant lot, hopeless poverty and exhausting labor.

Nature, as Nikitin perceives it, is an inexhaustible source of poetic inspiration, the very force that is capable of healing mental and even physical wounds, reconciling with deep social imperfection and stratification. Undoubtedly, the character of Nikitin's poetry was influenced by his own character. Unlike the much more emotional Koltsov, Nikitin was, to use the expression of the philosopher I. Kant, “a thing in itself.” Sparing means of expression, a minimum of metaphors and other verbal “decorations”, external simplicity and even artlessness. But they are the ones that have the most impact! For behind this external restraint it is not difficult to discern a passionate, rebellious, seeking, restless nature.

Few poets can compare with Nikitin in some physiological accuracy of descriptions, in the naturalism of sensations, as, for example, in the textbook lines of the poem “The stars fade and go out. There are clouds on fire...” And what a truly cosmic, universal scope there is in Nikitin’s first original poem “Rus”, where there is a “tent of blue skies”, and “the distance of the steppes”, and “chains of mountains”. Nikitin invariably moved toward awareness and comprehension of Russia through Voronezh, his “small Motherland,” whose borders he left only once, for a trip to the capital.

• When, under Soviet rule, the Mitrofanyevskoe cemetery in Voronezh was razed and liquidated, only the burials of Koltsov and Nikitin were able to be defended - a kind of provincial “Literary Bridges”.
• Many songs have been written based on Nikitin’s poems, bearing the name of the author. To this day they are perceived as Russian folk - the author managed to penetrate so much into the folk spirit. The most famous thing of this kind is “A rogue merchant was driving from the fair...”

In the difficult pre-reform period, the biography of Nikitin Ivan Savvich as a poet began, so his work was filled with the suffering of a forced, enslaved people. Motifs of need, exhausting labor, hopeless grief, and eternal melancholy characterized each of his works.

Christian

The poet knew how to empathize, sympathize and help those suffering, which is why Nikitin’s biography contains many manifestations of a purely Christian attitude towards one’s neighbor. Most of his poems and poems have religious or philosophical content. These are the poems "Fist" and "Taras", the poems "Prayer for the Cup", "Child's Prayer", "Prayer". Modern readers are close to his landscape lyrics; many poems are known by heart, and this does not depend on age. Everything suggests that Nikitin’s biography was written forever by fate, since the motives of native nature, health, beautiful people and pure feelings are eternal and will be in demand in all centuries.

Ivan Savvich Nikitin was born in September 1824 into the family of a poor Voronezh merchant, the owner of a small, almost artisanal factory. For eight years he was sent to a theological school, after which he set out to become a priest and entered the Voronezh Theological Seminary. Already at a young age, Ivan Savvich Nikitin felt a burning interest in literature, read many poetry books and tried to compose himself. Koltsov, Zhukovsky and Pushkin became his favorite poets.

Dreams and reality

In his dreams, Ivan Nikitin, a poet, saw himself as a student at the capital’s university, where he had the opportunity to see legendary writers. However, his father went bankrupt, he had to sell the factory in order to buy a crumbling inn and pay off the accumulated debts for a long, long time. The future poet had to manage this hotel to help his family. Therefore, not only did the university remain a distant dream, but I also had to leave the seminary.

He left many letters to his descendants about these years, filled with work and worries. It soulfully describes the love that Ivan Nikitin had for poetry. His poems are filled with heartache for the people forced to live in hopeless poverty, but at the same time the nightingale’s Russian speech sings in every letter, admiring the world around them, the free spaces. The poet's soul remained pure, attached to the beautiful, comforted by the word of freedom.

First poems

Ivan Nikitin began writing poetry very early, as soon as he learned to form letters, which he himself mentions in his letters. But, unfortunately, not all of them have survived. The earliest dates back to 1849. The very first publication immediately showed others that a real poet had come into the world. This poem by Ivan Nikitin - "Rus" - has become a textbook. It is from that galaxy of few masterpieces that schoolchildren still happily learn by heart to this day. Nikitin Ivan Savvich always wrote poems for children; he has quite a few works that would not be understandable to them.

And the first published poem was instantly reprinted by almost all newspapers published in Russia, and the poet became famous. However, the first collection of poems appeared only in 1856. Three years later, a bookstore opened in Voronezh - a stronghold of youth education, and Ivan Savvich Nikitin became its owner. Interesting facts from the poet's life were collected by those people who constituted the color of the social life of Voronezh, and who were brought together by this cultural center of the provincial city - the bookstore. Unfortunately, this happiness did not last long. “In the dark thicket the nightingale fell silent...” - Nikitin’s biography turned out to be very short.

Consumption

The poet lived a short, extremely difficult life, full of never-ending troubles with many sorrows, since his father, after ruin, fell into an incessant binge. But he devoted every free minute to poetry - reading or writing. However, the forces were running out. The life and work of Ivan Savvich Nikitin was cut short by consumption, which he contracted from overwork and the inability to pay attention to his own health. He died in the year when serfdom collapsed (in 1861).

He had been waiting for the liberation of the peasants all his life, and with every line he hastened this event. Being the owner of an inn, he saw many of the dirtiest scenes, communicated with a variety of people belonging to a variety of classes. His poems were passed on from mouth to mouth even by those who could not read, and the Voronezh intelligentsia called him “the second Koltsov.” In fact, he was never second, and Nikitin’s poetics are quite different from Koltsov’s poetics even in his earliest poems, although Chernyshevsky once reproached him for imitation.

Poems and poems

Nikolai Dobrolyubov highly appreciated Nikitin’s poem “Fist” for its originality, noting the creative growth that the poet has received since previous publications. In 1855, the poems “Street Meeting” and “The Coachman’s Wife” were published, after which the poet began to think about introducing something new into his style of presentation.

And therefore, after two years, poems came that were significantly different from the previous ones: “The Plowman,” “Overnight in the Village,” “The Spinner,” “The Beggar,” then “Mother and Daughter” and the famous “Wake.” Social motives appeared in the lines. This is especially true for the poems “Dead Body”, “Old Servant” and others created in his last years. In 1860, Nikitin, already terminally ill, wrote his only prose work, “The Diary of a Seminarian,” where memories of his youth were found.

Music

All his poems are so melodious that they themselves ask for song. The poet wrote about the bright moments of life: “A clear world will dawn on the soul...” More than sixty songs and romances were written at different times by Russian composers based on Nikitin’s poems. And composers are still interested in the poetry of Ivan Savvich. For example, in 2009, Alexander Sharafutdinov recorded an entire album called “Joy and Sorrow.”

Nikitin's poems are always saturated with music, they have absorbed that folk life, like a groan, which forced the poet, who cried all night over a poetic line, to destroy it at dawn, because it did not truthfully convey the state that made the night sleepless. The poet painstakingly searched for the truth - albeit not in life, but in poetry. The main thing is that he found her.

Family

Ivan Savvich was more like his mother - a meek woman, compassionate, deeply religious, even religious. She, like the poet himself, patiently waited all her life for a better fate, suffering immensely from the harsh character of her husband. The whole of Voronezh knew my father. The merchant is enterprising, but a heavy drinker, the first fist fighter in the city, which his family knew better than others. Ivan Nikitin loved his father very much for his strength, for his seriousness, for his practical acumen, for his efficiency.

But as a poet, his mother gave him much more. This is an exceptional, immeasurable sensitivity of the soul, a subtle poetic ear, dreaminess and deep faith. From birth, he communicated with wanderers, pilgrims, and pilgrims who visited the Mitrofanievsky monastery in Voronezh. They all came to the shop at the factory to buy candles.

People

People flocked here from all over the country; Nikitin heard and noted the folk dialect of different regions while still a little boy. He loved the stories of pilgrims and eagerly read the lives of saints and other spiritual books. This is precisely why the poet’s attitude towards Russian nature turned out to be so reverent, almost religious.

Subsequently, meeting and seeing off coachmen and cab drivers, merchants and wanderers, peasants and traveling artists, being the manager of an inn, Nikitin just as willingly communicated with passing people of all the variegated classes of Russian society. People were always extremely frank with him, because the poet is sensitive and kind. Although their stories for the most part were very bitter and weighed heavily on the heart. The only relaxation was poetry. In those days it was bad form to publish poems under your own name, and anonymous manuscripts were not accepted in the Voronezh newspaper. That is why the first publication of the poet’s poems took place so late.

Friends

Members of the Voronezh reading circle, among whom was the editor of the local newspaper Vtorov, immediately fell in love with both Nikitin’s poems and himself. Some liked the social protest and democratic overtones in his poems, while others reveled in the religious motifs and harmony in the poetic landscapes.

In 1854, Nikitin was recognized in the capital - his poems were published in Otechestvennye zapiski, and Kukolnik wrote an article about Nikitin in the Reading Library. Then a literature lover and high-ranking official, Count Tolstoy, became interested in the poet, after which a separate book by Nikitin was published with verses personally selected by Tolstoy and a preface written by him.

About borrowings and imitations

Nikitin’s early work really went through a certain literary school, since in his poems of the first period one can hear Pushkin (“Forest”), and Koltsov (“Rus”, “Spring in the Steppe”), and Lermontov (“In the West is the Sun”, “The Key”) "), and Maykova ("Evening"), and Nekrasova ("Street Meeting", "The Coachman's Story").

However, this is more like a single aesthetic support, since all of the above poets relied on folklore sources. There is always a common prototype. For Nikitin, this is not apprenticeship, but the folkloric nature of poetic thinking, the simplicity of folk ways, habits and attitudes towards creativity, which even at that time was largely oral. Nikitin is not even a poet, he is a storyteller who must live through collective creativity.

Nikitin Ivan Savvich (1824–1861) is a famous Russian poet. Nikitin's biography is rich in interesting events that gave impetus to the development of his literary gift.

Brief biography - Nikitin I. S.

Option 1

Ivan Savvich Nikitin was born on October 3, 1824 in Voronezh and was the only child in the family of the merchant Savva Eftikhievich Nikitin. Thanks to his intelligence and commercial savvy, Savva Eftikhievich was able to provide significant material wealth: he had his own candle factory, a large house with a balcony and a shop in a busy place. Vanya was nine years old when he was assigned to the 2nd grade of a religious school. By this time, the future poet already knew how to read. He studied diligently, successfully graduated from college and in 1839 entered the theological seminary.

During his seminary years, Nikitin fell in love with poetry and Alexei Koltsov. At the same time he begins to write poetry. Writing poems became a kind of necessity for him, and they created his fame as a “seminar poet.” He did not finish his studies at the seminary - he was expelled from the 4th year for missing classes. Attendance was affected by the difficult family situation: the death of the mother, the serious financial problems of the father.

Savva Nikitin buys an inn on the street. Kirochnaya (now Nikitinskaya Street, 19A) and in 1844 appointed Ivan as its manager.
In 1859, in the center of Voronezh on Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street (now Revolution Avenue), Ivan Savvich acquired a building and opened a bookstore with a stationery department in it. After some time, a reading room began operating at the store, which became a popular meeting place for the city’s literary community.

The poet Ivan Savvich Nikitin enjoyed success with women. But there was one person in his life for whom he had real feelings. This is Natalya Matveeva, the daughter of the famous Russian commander of the Voronezh militia during the Crimean War, Major General Anton Matveev. Ivan Savvich dedicated poems to her: “The sunlight fell on your face...”, “I don’t dare irritate you...”.

In the spring of 1861, Ivan Savvich became seriously ill. By autumn it became clear that the disease could not be defeated. The will was signed by the poet on September 10, 1861. According to it, the bookstore should be sold, and all the money should be distributed among relatives. Nikitin transferred the right to publish his works to his friend and mentor, adviser to the Voronezh provincial government, Nikolai Vtorov. According to the terms of the will, all proceeds from the publication of books were to go to charitable purposes. Ivan Savvich Nikitin died on October 28, 1861. He was buried in Voronezh in a literary necropolis next to the grave of the poet Alexei Koltsov.

Option 2

Nikitin Ivan Savvich (1824-1861), poet.

Born on October 3, 1824 in Voronezh into a wealthy middle-class family. He studied at the Voronezh Theological School and Theological Seminary, but did not graduate. The ruin of his father and difficult family circumstances forced Nikitin to become the owner of an inn.

In 1859, he opened a bookstore and a cheap library in Voronezh, which became the center of the literary and social life of the city. Nikitin's first poems, imbued with religious motifs, appeared in print in 1853. Then, the desire for realism was increasingly felt in the poet's work.

Nikitin described the sad fate of the urban worker and the poor peasant, the difficult lot of women (“Burlak”, “The Coachman’s Wife”, “Three Meetings”, 1854; “Street Meeting”, 1855, etc.). The poems “Rus” (1851) and “Meeting Winter” (1854) are full of love for the homeland.

Nikitin entered the history of Russian prose as the author of “The Diary of a Seminarian” (1860). An outstanding master of Russian poetic landscape, he reproduced pictures of his native land with deep love and soulful lyricism. More than 60 romances and songs were written to the words of Nikitin, one of the most brilliant Russian peasant poets. He died on October 28, 1861 in Voronezh.

Option 3

Nikitin I.S. was born in 1824 into a poor middle-class family. His father was selling candles. Vanya began his studies in 1839 at the Voronezh Seminary, which gave him rich life experience and a good education, but it was boring, which he did not like. Later, he will write about this in the “diaries of a seminarian.” In 1944, his father bought an inn on one of the streets of Voronezh and began living there with his family. But his father’s constant drunkenness subsequently ruined the Nikitin family, as a result of which the young man had to quit studying at the seminary and become an innkeeper himself.

Nikitin was a comprehensively developed person, devoting a lot of time to self-development and studying foreign languages ​​(French, German); he also loved to read, especially Goethe. Nikitin’s first poems received recognition from the local intelligentsia, he became friends with such poets as Vtorov Nikolai Ivanovich De-Pule Mikhail Fedorovich, Nikitin is also considered Koltsov’s successor. The first of his surviving poems date back to 1849. Nikitin made his debut with the poem “Rus,” written in 1851, but published only in 1853, and in 1859 the first collection of his poems was published, which received many conflicting reviews.

Later, in 1959, the poet borrowed 3,000 rubles from a major philanthropist Kokorev, and opened a reading room in the city center, which later became popular among the local population. Health Nikitin A.S. On October 16, 1861, he became weak as a result of consumption and, unable to cope with the disease, the poet died. He was buried in the city of Voronezh. Years later, a circus was built at the burial site of Nikitin, but the burial of him and several other people, one of which is the burial of A.S. Koltsov. not touched. Currently this place is called the “Literary Necropolis”

Full biography - Nikitin I. S.

Ivan Savvich Nikitin was a famous Russian poet. He was born on September 21, 1824 in Voronezh. His father sold candles and for the time being was quite a wealthy man. In 1839, at the age of 15, Vanya Nikitin entered the theological seminary, where he studied for 4 years. While he was in the seminary, his father’s affairs deteriorated somewhat, which became the cause of his father’s addiction to the “little white one,” as a result of which the beatings of his mother began. By the way, Nikitin’s mother fell under the bad influence of her husband, and just like him, she began to abuse alcohol, which could not but affect Ivan’s studies. Due to the fact that the atmosphere in the house was extremely tense, Nikitin began to skip classes a lot, for which he was expelled with the wording of “low success.”

But the seminary was still able to teach Nikitin something. Not so much because of his studies, but because of his discovered passion for reading, Nikitin attended this educational institution. He became passionately interested in Belinsky, and inspired by his works, he left the seminary. Further, Nikitin’s biography is not entirely simple. “Free life” turned out to be harsh and cruel, and forced Nikitin to begin to accustom himself to difficult realities.

Plunging into a world full of worries, troubles and the need to earn money, he began working in his father’s shop. His father continued to drink and, after some time, sold both the candle factory and the shop. With the little money that he managed to earn from the sale of the candle shop, Nikitin’s father decided to open an inn, where he arranged for his son to work there as a janitor. Despite the difficult conditions that surrounded him, Nikitin tried to hold on and not lose heart, not to sink to the level of some of the people who surrounded him, even though this was quite difficult to do.

In 1953, Nikitin sent his poems to the then famous Voronezh Provincial Gazette. The poem “Rus” was so patriotic that it brought the poet fame in Voronezh. The editors of Vedomosti, N.I. Vtorov and K.O. Aleksandrov-Dolnik, became interested in Nikitin and even decided to introduce him to a certain circle of intellectuals that existed at that time.

Gradually, starting somewhere in 1854, Nikitin’s poems began to be published in Moskvityanin, Library for Reading, and Otechestvennye Zapiski. It seems that everything began to gradually improve, the friendly attitude of the authors and editors towards Nikitin had an encouraging effect on him, apathy and despondency began to gradually disappear, Nikitin was actively writing at that time. Everything that he managed to achieve in such a short period of time, namely success in the writing field, Nikitin’s warm and friendly relations with his colleagues, the goodwill of Vtorov and the members of his circle had their effect - Nikitin stopped withdrawing into himself and was no longer aloof and constantly depressed. But Nikitin’s high vitality and good mood were overshadowed by one thing - health problems.

In 1856, a collection of Nikitin’s poems was published, which caused an extremely cold attitude from critics, namely Chernyshevsky, who very sharply and in unpleasant tones expressed his opinion about the collection in Sovremennik.

In addition to his writing, Nikitin did not forget about his work and continued to look after his father’s inn. Despite the fact that Nikitin’s father never gave up his addiction to drinking, the relationship between them improved - apparently, this was due to the fact that Nikitin was no longer as upset about problems in the family as before. The reason for this was that he moved in writing circles, and he actually had no time left for worries, and he had a favorite pastime to which he devoted all his free time. In the period from 1854 to 1856. Nikitin devoted a lot of time to self-education, read and studied enthusiastically, and even decided to start learning French.

The year 1857 became difficult for Nikitin, one might even say difficult. The fact is that at this time, his closest friend and ally, Vtorov, left for another country, leaving him practically alone. This event became the reason that Nikitin again began to feel decadent moods, and seemed to feel his family problems and adversities anew. This could not but affect the attitude towards oneself as a poet; he begins to doubt himself, his creative talent, his talent as a writer.

1858 was the year when Nikitin’s poem entitled “The Fist” was published, to which criticism, oddly enough, reacted positively and warmly. Dobrolyubov himself expressed his positive attitude towards the poem. In addition to reviews from critics, the poem sold out in large quantities and began to bring Nikitin a stable, good income. During these years, Nikitin again decided that it was time to engage in self-education, and during this period he especially actively studied the works of Schiller, Goethe, Chenier and others, and began to study German in order to later translate Heine and Schiller into Russian.

In general, 1857–1858 for Nikitin became a period when the poet actively published in such publications as Otechestvennye zapiski, Russian Conversation, and others. V.A. helped him a lot at that time. Kokarev, who lent Nikitin about 3,000 rubles (at that time it was very decent money). With this amount, Nikitin decides to open his own store, and in 1859 he fulfills his dream by opening both a store and a library where one could come and read books.

In the same 1859, Nikitin published a collection of poems, which, to the great regret of the author himself, did not enjoy the same great popularity as his previous work, and critics reacted rather coolly to these poems. This could not but have a negative impact on his well-being, and for the next year and a half, Nikitin either struggled with attacks of weakness, or, on the contrary, noticed that his level of vitality was jumping up.

The next year, in 1861, Nikitin decided to go to Moscow and Petrograd on vacation. Having returned from there, he was in high spirits for the rest of the year and even wrote a rather voluminous work called “The Diary of a Seminarian,” which was later published in the already well-known magazine “Voronezh Conversations.” But these efforts of his remained unappreciated, and again a wave of sympathetic reviews washed over Nikitin with renewed vigor.

By the end of that year, Nikitin began to feel worse, and then his health suddenly improved. Nikitin gathered his courage and continued his activities in the literary circle that formed around a certain M.F. De Poulet. Nikitin also continues to work on the opening of Sunday schools and on the problem of generally improving student literacy.

In May 1861, Nikitin caught a severe cold, which subsequently led to such a serious illness as tuberculosis, which became the final chord in his life. While Nikitin was treating this disease, he felt very bad, could barely move and had neither the moral nor physical strength to force himself to do anything. But his father, for example, remained completely blind and deaf to his son’s illness, and continued to abuse alcohol, as before.

The very first works of this author date back to 1849. Considering Nikitin’s work as a whole, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that the suffering he experienced, mental melancholy, sadness and a feeling of some hopelessness, one way or another, left their mark on all of his work. Perhaps the whole point was that since his youth, he loved to withdraw into himself and remain indifferent to what was happening outside his consciousness. Nikitin honestly tried to abstract himself from the melancholy and sadness that had become constant components in his life, and even wrote works about things that he had never seen in his life. So, for example, some of his poems were dedicated to the sea, so deep, blue and boundless, but he had never seen it.

All of Nikitin’s poetry is thoroughly imbued with the poet’s desire to comprehend and understand life, to try to change it at least a little, even if this task, in the end, turned out to be beyond his strength. His dreams did not correspond to reality, and the desire to turn a blind eye to obvious things simply killed him. But, nevertheless, having managed to at least slightly overcome himself and the inclination of creativity, Nikitin in the years 1849–1853, as best he could, tried not to confine himself to his own experiences, tried to become interested in the things around him, and as a result, some of his social motives, called “Silence of the Night”, “Leave Your Sad Story”, “To the Singer”, “Vengeance” and “Need”.

In those years, Nikitin was still too young to have his own, established point of view on many problems, and therefore the works of those years smack a little of official patriotism (“Rus”), only after some time he begins to see evil and injustice in the reality around him. He begins to show his first notes of protest, calls on people to fight evil and evil deeds, as well as selfish motives, which, in his opinion, too many of those around him possessed (“Leave your sad story,” “To the Singer,” etc. .).

In the period from 1849 to 1853, Nikitin read the works of other authors, trying to find in them answers to possibly unresolved questions. Koltsov had the strongest influence on Nikitin at that moment, especially regarding the form of his writing activity (“Spring on the Steppe”, “Rus”, “Life and Death”, “Calm”, “Inheritance”, “Song” and many others) .) Nikitin was so imbued with Koltsov’s style that most of his works of that time, in the manner of presentation, were extremely difficult to distinguish from the works of Koltsov himself.

In addition to Koltsov, Nikitin had a great influence in the period from 1849–1853. provide work, A.S. Pushkin and other famous poets of that time. The gradual understanding of the realities of life and some of the mysteries of the human soul, as well as human consciousness, largely determined the direction of Nikitin’s works of that time. They contain too much rhetorical theme, a certain artificiality (“Duma”, “Cemetery”, “Wreck”).

1853 is not final in this kind of work; the periods of Nikitin’s life even after 1853 will be distinguished by the impact of unnecessary experiences and complex conclusions and thoughts. But, in addition to this, notes of ethnic elements and folk flavor begin to sound more and more actively in his works (“New Struggle”, “Donets”, “To take Kars”, etc.). But his works such as “Prayer for the Chalice” and “The Sweetness of Prayer,” on the contrary, are imbued with religious motifs.

In most of Nikitin’s early works, the influence of M.Yu. Lermontov, A.S. is clearly felt. Pushkin (“Fist”, “New Struggle”, “My Yard Is Not Wide”, “Treason”, “What a Good Thing He Was” and “Bobyl”), but at the same time, it should be noted that Nikitin’s desire to still find his own path, and to succumb to the influence of other authors as little as possible.

Despite Nikitin’s desire, in his works, which date from 1854 to 1856, one can discern the influence that Vtorov and the members of his literary circle had on him (as you remember, Nikitin was an active participant in this organization). And only in 1857 can we attribute the fact that in literary circles they began to perceive him as an independent creative unit, and not as a carbon copy of the work of many authors who were known long before him.

After 1857, the works of this author are the most direct and immediate reflection of his emotional experiences, problems, concerns and thoughts, which, unfortunately, were not always so colorful and bright. Time passed towards the 60s, and at the same time, Nikitin himself improved and developed as a poet, who by this time had learned to take a philosophical approach to the problems of the surrounding reality. And, even despite the fact that Nikitin was not able, as he believed, to fully reveal his talent, his poems of 1860 are already distinguished by much greater independence of thinking and logically constructed conclusions. As soon as he showed the literary world that he himself was worth something, death suddenly disrupted all his plans and intentions. Nikitin was never able to fully show what he was capable of and how he could still write.

One of the strongest directions of his creativity is the ethnographic side of his work. He was able to very accurately convey folk traditions, customs and rituals in his works, and was able to emphasize precisely those advantages of the life and way of life of the common people that most fully and accurately reveal and outline the picture of people's life. His sincere affection for the common man, love for Russian nature, sympathy for the difficult lot that befell many peasants at that time, as well as a passionate and all-consuming desire to at least a little alleviate the suffering and labor of his native people - all this together gave its result, which reflected in his works.

Another unique ability of Nikitin was the ability to objectively reveal and show aspects of people's life. Despite the fact that he loved his people and his country with all his heart and soul, he never sought to completely and completely idealize them. Describing in his works both positive and negative traits of the people's character, he tried to approach this issue as impartially as possible, and, consequently, he despised all negative traits, such as despotism, rudeness, drunkenness and others. He ridiculed all these negative characteristics of the Russian character in his works “The Stubborn Father”, “Division”, “Damage” and others.

But still, despite his attachment to rural residents, Nikitin can be classified as a lover of city life. Although he occasionally visited the surrounding villages of Voronezh, he mostly preferred to stay in the city.

Also, from the point of view of his writing talent, Nikitin, who at that time already enjoyed quite a lot of fame, was of great importance for Nikitin. Nekrasov’s work, in a sense, determined the direction of development of Nikitin’s poetry, since Nekrasov’s satire, irony and amazing sense of humor revealed new facets and sides in the author himself. But, as is obvious, Nikitin’s whole life consisted of sharp contrasts, for example, in 1860 he wrote a poem dedicated to Nekrasov, in which he spoke in a rather harsh form about the writer’s work and about his nature in general.

But, summing up all of the above, we can draw one main conclusion - all of Ivan Nikitin’s work has always, to one degree or another, reflected his experiences and doubts; his constantly fluctuating mood distorted the direction of his works towards optimism and sincere faith and hope for a bright future. Although literally the next day Nikitin was already writing poems full of bitterness, pessimism and notes of bitter irony.

All Nikitin’s work has a large share of autobiography; some events that took place in his life forever left a deep imprint on his numerous works. Especially at a time when Nikitin was shackled by illness, all his poems (already his last poems) were thoroughly permeated with sadness and gloomy reflections and heavy thoughts. The main source of negativity, which was accurately reflected in his works, was not only personal grief and the constant stress in which he lived while living with his drunken parents, but also the harsh social reality, which always tormented Nikitin with its injustice, and at times, cruelty.

Nikitin was not a great poet of his time, but everything he did, he did with his soul, with his heart, with a sincere and honest attitude towards himself, towards his work and towards people. That is why his works (especially some of them) are truly the apogee of humanism and philanthropy - those qualities that were already very rare at that time!

15 interesting facts from the life of Nikitin I.S.

The famous Russian poet Ivan Savvich Nikitin was a lover of literature in every sense. Even before he put pen to paper, he constantly absorbed the works of Russian and foreign writers and poets, paying special attention to the work of French writers, in particular Victor Hugo. In general, the influence of recognized classics is noticeable in his early work, and some researchers even classify Ivan Nikitin’s poems of this era as imitative work, but later he developed his own unique style.

Facts from the biography of Ivan Nikitin

• The future poet studied at a theological school and seminary. The father, at first a fairly wealthy merchant, hoped to send his son to university, but his business fell apart, and Ivan Nikitin was forced to become a caregiver in the wax candle trade.
• The earliest surviving poems by Ivan Nikitin date back to 1849, many of them are imitative in nature.
• In his youth, Nikitin was fond of Pushkin, Zhukovsky and other classics.
• When Ivan was eight years old, his father sent him to the Voronezh Theological School. After graduating from college, he expressed a desire to become a priest and entered the theological seminary.
• The works of Ivan Nikitin went through a large number of editions and were sold in a huge number of copies.
• Little Ivan Nikitin mastered reading and writing early. He was helped in this by a neighbor who was a shoemaker, but a very educated one. Having learned to add letters, Ivan immediately began to compose his first poems.
• During his lifetime, Nikitin managed to publish two collections of poetry.
• Ivan Nikitin began writing poetic lines while still in seminary, but he decided to publish his creations only years later.
• When, under Soviet power, the Mitrofanyevskoe cemetery in Voronezh was razed and liquidated, only the burials of Koltsov and Ivan Nikitin were able to be defended.
• Many songs have been written based on the poems of Ivan Nikitin, which are based on the name of the author. To this day, they are often perceived as Russian folk.
• Ivan Nikitin successfully began to write prose - his work “The Diary of a Seminarist” was first published in 1861.
• Nekrasov invited the poet Ivan Nikitin to collaborate with him in his magazine Sovremennik. This was a real recognition, but I. S. Nikitin could no longer take advantage of the invitation - the illness undermined the poet’s strength.
• Nikitin wrote his first poems precisely in imitation of Koltsov, who was his idol.
• Ivan Nikitin lived his entire short life (only 37 years) in his native Voronezh.
• In Voronezh there is Nikitinskaya Street, which was named after this great poet.