Biography
Biography
Ivan Barkov was born in 1732 in the family of an Orthodox priest. As a child he attended an Orthodox school, but at the age of 16 he won an admission to Moscow State University and scholarship. He liked language and poetry, which were his major fields of study. Still, he was notorious wild lifestyle, that lead to his expulsion from the University for fighting with police in 1751.
After expulsion, Ivan Barkov worked as a clerk and technical editor in one of the first Russian publishing houses. Although menial, this work gave him a lot of practice to perfect his language. After years of distinctive service he was promoted to an interpreter and translated some Greek poetry into Russian. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards under unclear circumstances. A widespread legend tells that he died in a fist fight in a brothel and managed to put the résumé of his life ??? ?????? ? ???? ?????? (lived sinfully and died absurdly). Another legend states that he, being dead-drunk has fallen into a privy hole and died there, and the known résumé is an epitaph he has written for a protagonist of one of his own poems.
[edit] Poetry
Barkov was highly regarded as an able interpreter and a poet. Since poetry was his hobby more than his job, he could afford to use simpler language in his work. Most of his poems are outrightly obscene or even pornographic, although very funny. Written copies of his work circulated Russia since their creation.
Most works commonly ascribed to Barkov actually date from the 1840s. A major work from this corpus is Luka Mudischev (???? ???????), a story of a low-life Russian dvoryanin from an old family which was given nobility due to the size of their penises (his last name Mudischev is derived from a highly obscene word ????? meaning testicles). He is paid to have sex with a bored widow and kills her with his eight-vershok-long phallus in process. In the end, he and madame kill each other. However mundane the plot is, the poem manages to tell a lot about daily life of that time and place and is partially a satire directed towards odd nobility politics and social practices of that time.
[edit] Legacy
Ivan Barkov had a major impact on Russian language and later literati. His name is being brought up in any dispute on introduction of slang words into language, and, although his verses were unpublished for a very long time for being immoral, written copies of his work could always be found in student environment.
[edit] External links
Barkov's biography (in Russian)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Barkov"
- Victor Erofeyev
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- Denis Davydov
Denis Vasilyevich Davydov (Russian: ????? ?????????? ???????) (27 July 1784 ? 22 April 1839) was a Russian soldier-poet of the Napoleonic Wars who invented a specific genre ? hussar poetry noted for its hedonism and bravado ? and spectacularly designed...
- Gennadiy Aygi
Gennadiy Nikolaevich Aygi (Chuvash: ???? ???????? ??????????; Russian: ???????? ?????????? ????, August 21, 1934 - February 21, 2006, Moscow) was a Chuvashian poet and a translator. His poetry is written both in Chuvash and in Russian. He was born in...
- Konstantin Aksakov
Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov (Russian: ?????????? ???????) (1817 - 1860) was a Russian critic and writer, one of the earliest and most notable Slavophiles. He wrote plays, social criticism, and histories of the ancient Russian social order. The writer...
- Bella Akhmadulina
Bella (Izabella) Akhatovna Akhmadulina (Russian: ????? ???????? ??????????) is a Russian poet who has been cited by Joseph Brodsky as the best living poet in the Russian language. Bella was born on the 10 April 1937 in Moscow. Akhmadulina was the only...
Biography
Ivan Barkov
Biography
Ivan Barkov was born in 1732 in the family of an Orthodox priest. As a child he attended an Orthodox school, but at the age of 16 he won an admission to Moscow State University and scholarship. He liked language and poetry, which were his major fields of study. Still, he was notorious wild lifestyle, that lead to his expulsion from the University for fighting with police in 1751.
After expulsion, Ivan Barkov worked as a clerk and technical editor in one of the first Russian publishing houses. Although menial, this work gave him a lot of practice to perfect his language. After years of distinctive service he was promoted to an interpreter and translated some Greek poetry into Russian. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards under unclear circumstances. A widespread legend tells that he died in a fist fight in a brothel and managed to put the résumé of his life ??? ?????? ? ???? ?????? (lived sinfully and died absurdly). Another legend states that he, being dead-drunk has fallen into a privy hole and died there, and the known résumé is an epitaph he has written for a protagonist of one of his own poems.
[edit] Poetry
Barkov was highly regarded as an able interpreter and a poet. Since poetry was his hobby more than his job, he could afford to use simpler language in his work. Most of his poems are outrightly obscene or even pornographic, although very funny. Written copies of his work circulated Russia since their creation.
Most works commonly ascribed to Barkov actually date from the 1840s. A major work from this corpus is Luka Mudischev (???? ???????), a story of a low-life Russian dvoryanin from an old family which was given nobility due to the size of their penises (his last name Mudischev is derived from a highly obscene word ????? meaning testicles). He is paid to have sex with a bored widow and kills her with his eight-vershok-long phallus in process. In the end, he and madame kill each other. However mundane the plot is, the poem manages to tell a lot about daily life of that time and place and is partially a satire directed towards odd nobility politics and social practices of that time.
[edit] Legacy
Ivan Barkov had a major impact on Russian language and later literati. His name is being brought up in any dispute on introduction of slang words into language, and, although his verses were unpublished for a very long time for being immoral, written copies of his work could always be found in student environment.
[edit] External links
Barkov's biography (in Russian)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Barkov"
- Victor Erofeyev
Victor Erofeyev (Russian: ?????? ???????; born 1947) is a Russian author, the son of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat (who worked closely with Stalin). He spent some of his childhood in Paris, which accounts for why much of his work has been translated...
- Denis Davydov
Denis Vasilyevich Davydov (Russian: ????? ?????????? ???????) (27 July 1784 ? 22 April 1839) was a Russian soldier-poet of the Napoleonic Wars who invented a specific genre ? hussar poetry noted for its hedonism and bravado ? and spectacularly designed...
- Gennadiy Aygi
Gennadiy Nikolaevich Aygi (Chuvash: ???? ???????? ??????????; Russian: ???????? ?????????? ????, August 21, 1934 - February 21, 2006, Moscow) was a Chuvashian poet and a translator. His poetry is written both in Chuvash and in Russian. He was born in...
- Konstantin Aksakov
Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov (Russian: ?????????? ???????) (1817 - 1860) was a Russian critic and writer, one of the earliest and most notable Slavophiles. He wrote plays, social criticism, and histories of the ancient Russian social order. The writer...
- Bella Akhmadulina
Bella (Izabella) Akhatovna Akhmadulina (Russian: ????? ???????? ??????????) is a Russian poet who has been cited by Joseph Brodsky as the best living poet in the Russian language. Bella was born on the 10 April 1937 in Moscow. Akhmadulina was the only...