page_title: Apollon Maykov
section_title: Literary career
hierarchical_section_title: Apollon Maykov / Biography / Literary career
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Майков, Аполлон Николаевич English: Apollon Maykov
context_page_description: Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov was a Russian poet, best known for his lyric verse showcasing images of Russian villages, nature, and history. His love for ancient Greece and Rome, which he studied for much of his life, is also reflected in his works. Maykov spent four years translating the epic The Tale of Igor's Campaign into modern Russian. He translated the folklore of Belarus, Greece, Serbia and Spain, as well as works by Heine, Adam Mickiewicz and Goethe, among others. Several of Maykov's poems were set to music by Russian composers, among them Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.
  Maykov was born into an artistic family and educated at home, by the writer Ivan Goncharov, among others. At the age of 15, he began writing his first poetry. After finishing his gymnasium course in just three years, he enrolled in Saint Petersburg University in 1837.
  He began publishing his poems in 1840, and came out with his first collection in 1842. The collection was reviewed favorably by the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky.
context_section_description: Apollon Maykov's first poems (signed "M.") were published in 1840 by the Odessa Almanac and in 1841  by Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya and Otechestvennye Zapiski. He also studied painting, but soon chose to devote himself entirely to poetry. Instrumental in this decision was Pyotr Pletnyov, a University professor who, acting as a mentor for the young man, showed the first poems of his protégé to such literary giants as Vasily Zhukovsky and Nikolai Gogol. Maykov never became a painter, but the lessons he received greatly influenced his artistic worldview and writing style.
  In 1842 his first collection Poems by A.N. Maykov was published, to much acclaim. "For me it sounds like Delvig's ideas expressed by Pushkin," Pletnyov wrote. Vissarion Belinsky responded with a comprehensive essay, praising the book's first section called "Poems Written for an Anthology", a cycle of verses stylized after both ancient Greek epigrams and the traditional elegy. He was flattered by the famous critic's close attention. Maykov paid heed to his advice and years later, working on the re-issues, edited much of the text in direct accordance with Belinsky's views.
  After graduating from the university, Maykov joined the Russian Ministry of Finance as a clerk. Having received a stipend for his first book from Tsar Nicholas I, he used the money to travel abroad, visiting Italy (where he spent most of his time writing poetry and painting), France, Saxony, and Austria. In Paris Apollon and Valerian attended lectures on literature and fine arts at the Sorbonne and the College de France. On his way back Maykov visited Dresden and Prague where he met Vaclav Hanka and Pavel Jozef Safarik, the two leaders of the national revival movement. The direct outcome of this voyage for Apollon Maykov was a University dissertation on the history of law in Eastern Europe.
  In 1844 Maykov returned to Saint Petersburg to join the Rumyantsev Museum library as an assistant. He became actively involved with the literary life of the Russian capital, contributing to Otechestvennye Zapiski, Finsky Vestnik and Sovremennik. He also debuted as a critic and published several essays on literature and fine art, reviewing works by artists like Ivan Aivazovsky, Fyodor Tolstoy and Pavel Fedotov.
  In 1846 the Petersburg Anthology published his poem "Mashenka", which saw Maykov discarding elegy and leaning towards a more down-to-Earth style of writing. Again Belinsky was impressed, hailing the arrival of "a new talent, quite capable of presenting real life in its true light." The critic also liked Two Fates (Saint Petersburg, 1845). A "natural school" piece, touched by Mikhail Lermontov's influence, it featured "a Pechorin-type character, an intelligent, thinking nobleman retrogressing into a low-brow philistine," according to Alexander Hertzen's review. In the late 1840s Maykov was also writing prose, in a Gogol-influenced style known as the "physiological sketch". Among the short stories he published at the time were "Uncle's Will" (1847) and "The Old Woman – Fragments from the Notes of a Virtuous Man" (1848).
  In the late 1840s Maykov entered Belinsky's circle and became friends with  Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Turgenev. Along with his brother Valerian he started to attend Mikhail Petrashevsky's 'Secret Fridays', establishing contacts with Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Aleksey Pleshcheyev. Later, having been interrogated about his involvement, Maykov avoided arrest (he did not have a significant role in the group's activities), but for several years was kept under secret police surveillance. In the years to come Maykov, who never believed in the ideas of socialism, often expressed embarrassment over his involvement in the Petrashevsky affair. In an 1854 letter to M. A. Yazykov he confessed: "At the time I had very vague political ideas and was foolish enough to join a group where all the government's actions were criticized and condemned as wrong a priory, many of [its members] applauding every mistake, according to the logic of 'the worse they rule, the quicker they'll fall'. In the 1850s Maykov, no
caption: Maykov circa 1850
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