page_title: Gavrila Derzhavin
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Gavrila Derzhavin / Works
caption_attribution_description: English: Posthumous portrait of the poet Gavrila Derzhavin, after a painting by Salvatore Tonci
context_page_description: Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin was one of the most highly esteemed Russian poets before Alexander Pushkin, as well as a statesman. Although his works are traditionally considered literary classicism, his best verse is rich with antitheses and conflicting sounds in a way reminiscent of John Donne and other metaphysical poets.
context_section_description: Derzhavin is best remembered for his odes, dedicated to the Empress and other courtiers. He paid little attention to the prevailing system of genres, and many a time would fill an ode with elegiac, humorous, or satiric contents. In his grand ode to the Empress, for instance, he mentions searching for fleas in his wife's hair and compares his own poetry with lemonade.
  Unlike other Classicist poets, Derzhavin found delight in carefully chosen details, such as a colour of wallpaper in his bedroom or a poetic inventory of his daily meal. He believed that French was a language of harmony but that Russian was a language of conflict. Although he relished harmonious alliterations, sometimes he deliberately instrumented his verse with cacophonous effect.
  Derzhavin's major odes were the impeccable "On the Death of Prince Meschersky" (1779); the playful "Ode to Felica" (1782); the lofty "God" (1785), which was translated into many European languages; "Waterfall" (1794), occasioned by the death of Prince Potemkin; and "Bullfinch" (1800), a poignant elegy on the death of his friend Suvorov. He also provided lyrics for the first Russian national anthem, Let the thunder of victory sound!
  In 1800, Derzhavin wrote the political work Opinion in response to a request by Emperor Paul I to investigate recent famines in Mogilev Governorate. In the Opinion, Derzhavin blamed Belorussian famines on the "mercenary trades" of Jews, who exploited peasants through leaseholding of estates and distilling of alcohol, as well as the indifference of the local magnates who allowed this exploitation to occur. In response to these issues, Derzhavin proposed a series of reforms to substantially restrict the freedoms of the magnates, abolish the Jewish Qahal, end the autonomy of the Russian Jewish community, and resettle Russian Jews in colonies along the Black Sea. The Opinion became an influential source of information during the early reign of Alexander I, who eventually implemented several of Derzhavin's suggested reforms in the 1804 Statute Concerning the Organization of the Jews.
  Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn in his book - Two Hundred Years Together: history of the Jews in Russia, disputed the allegation of antisemitism taken from the Jewish Encyclopedia responding:
  Because of all his observations in White Russia, and of his conclusion, and of all he wrote in the Memorandum, and especially because of all these lines, and probably also because he "praised the keen vision of the great Russian monarchs … which forbade the immigration and travel of these clever robbers into their realm," is Derzhavin spoken of as "a fanatical enemy of Jews," a great Anti-Semite. He is accused - though unjustly, as we have seen – of "imputing the drunkenness and poverty of the White Russian peasant exclusively to the Jews," and his "positive measures" were characterized as given without evidence, to serve his personal ambition. But that he was in no wise prejudiced against the Jews, is indicated in that (1) his whole Memorandum emerged in 1800 in response to the actual misery and hunger of the peasants, (2) the goal was to do well by both the White Russian peasant and the Jews, (3) he distinguished them economically and (4) his desire was to orient the Jews toward a real productive activity, of whom, as Catherine planned, a part first and foremost was supposed to have been relocated in territories that were not closed.
caption: Posthumous engraving of Derzhavin
   by Fyodor Iordan
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