page_title: Fyodor Tyutchev
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Fyodor Tyutchev / Life
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Господский дом в музее-заповеднике "Овстуг" Deutsch: Fjodor Tjuttschews Anwesen in Owstug, Oblast Brjansk, Russland
context_page_description: Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev was a Russian poet and diplomat.
context_section_description: Tyutchev was born into a Russian noble family in the Ovstug family estate near Bryansk (modern-day Zhukovsky District, Bryansk Oblast of Russia). His father Ivan Nikolaevich Tyutchev (1768—1846) was a court councillor who served in the Kremlin Expedition that managed all building and restoration works of Moscow palaces. One of Ivan's sisters, Evdokia Meshcherskaya (1774—1837), was a hegumenia famous for founding the Borisoglebsky Anosin Women's Monastery. The Tyutchevs traced their roots to Zakhariy Tutchev mentioned in The Tale of the Rout of Mamai, a 15th-century epic tale about the Battle of Kulikovo that described him as the most trusted man of Dmitry Donskoy; sent as a messenger to Mamai, he managed to reveal traitors and return alive thanks to his diplomatic skills. Fyodor's mother Ekaterina Lvovna Tolstaya (1776—1866) 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 the age of 13. His first printed work was a translation of Horace's epistle to Maecenas, published when he was still 15. From that time on, his poetic language was distinguished from that of Pushkin and other contemporaries by its liberal use of majestic, solemn Slavonic archaisms.
  His family tutor was Semyon Raich, a minor poet and translator under whose guidance Tyutchev undertook his first poetic steps. From 1819 to 1821 Tyutchev studied at the Philological Faculty of Moscow University. After graduating he joined the Foreign Office and in 1822 accompanied his relative, Count Ostermann-Tolstoy, to Munich to take up a post as trainee diplomat at the Russian legation. He was to remain abroad for 22 years.
  In Munich he fell in love with Amalie von Lerchenfeld, the illegitimate half-sister of a young Bavarian diplomat, Count Maximilian Joseph von Lerchenfeld. Tyutchev's poem Tears or Slyozy (Liubliu, druz'ya, laskat' ochami...) coincides with one of their meetings, and is most likely dedicated to Amalie (or Amélie, as she was usually known). Among other poems inspired by her are K. N., and Ia pomniu vremia zolotoe… Published extracts from the letters and diaries of Maximilian von Lerchenfeld illuminate the first years of Tyutchev as a diplomat in Munich (1822–1826), giving details of his frustrated love affair for Amélie, nearly involving a duel (probably with his colleague, Baron Alexander von Krüdener), in January 1825. Amélie was coerced by her relatives into marrying the much older Krüdener, but she and Tyutchev continued to be friends and frequented the same diplomatic society in Munich. A late poem of 1870 with the title K.B. (Ia vstretil vas - i vsio biloe), long accepted on dubious evidence as addressed to Amélie, is now thought much more likely to refer to Tyutchev's sister-in-law Clotilde (or Klothilde) von Bothmer. Tyutchev's last meeting with Amélie took place on March 31, 1873 (OS) when she visited him on his deathbed. The next day, Tyutchev wrote to his daughter Daria: 
  Yesterday I felt a moment of burning emotion due to my meeting with... my dear Amalie Krüdener who wished to see me for the last time in this world and came to take her leave of me. In her person my past and the best years of my life came to give me a farewell kiss.
  In Munich, he came under the influence of the German Romantic movement, and this is reflected in his poetry. Among the figures, he knew personally were the poet Heinrich Heine and the philosopher Friedrich Schelling. In 1826, he married the Bavarian widow of a Russian diplomat Eleonore Peterson, née Countess von Bothmer. She became the mother of his daughter Anna Tiuttjev.  Following her death in 1838, Tyutchev married another aristocratic young German widow, Baroness Ernestine von Dörnberg, née von Pfeffel, who had become his mistress and had a child by him while Eleonore was still alive. Neither of his wives understood Russian to begin with (Ernestine made efforts to learn the lan
caption: The manor of Tyutchev's father in the Bryansk region
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