The poet Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev anticipated the development of the fable genre in Russia, in fact becoming one of the pioneers in this kind of literary work. Being a talented person, Dmitriev devoted his whole life to poetry and writing, having achieved recognition and considerable success. His biography is quite simple – there were neither references nor conflicts with the authorities, which, of course, does not make it less interesting.
The parents of the future poet virtually went bankrupt because of the Pugachev rebellion. This forced them to move from Simbirsk province to Moscow. At the age of 14, Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev enlisted as a private in the army to earn money. The parents of Ivan Dmitriev had no money to train his son. They sent him to a boarding school, but he had to leave him and return home, because the family could not pay for the education. In his youth, I. I. Dmitriev himself was engaged in his education. French, for example, he mastered, reading French novels.
Favorite author in the life of Ivan Dmitriev was a Frenchman Lafontaine, fabulist. Young Ivan translated his works into Russian, often at the same time turning prose into poetry. Throughout his life, Ivan Dmitriev, as his brief biography says, very often took long vacations to distract from the service and engage in literature. After becoming acquainted with the historiographer Nikolai Karamzin, it turned out that Ivan Dmitriev was a distant relative of him. For all the time of service in the army, the poet did not take a personal part in the hostilities.
The first publications of I. I. Dmitriev did not bring him success. He published them anonymously, without a signature. Once the poet was arrested on a false denunciation, but was soon acquitted. Military service, Ivan Dmitriev left in the rank of colonel. However, he never sought a career, wanting to devote his whole life to literature. On the work of Dmitriev, Gabriel Derzhavin, who was his friend, was of considerable importance. Another interesting fact about Ivan Dmitriev’s biography is that he pushed Ivan Krylov to writing fables, contributing to the fact that Krylov became the most famous Russian fabulist in history.
After his retirement at the personal invitation of Emperor Alexander I, Ivan Dmitriev moved to St. Petersburg, where he was appointed Minister of Justice. In this position, because of his directness and integrity, he lasted only 4 years. Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev was acquainted with Pushkin. Subsequently, he included some episodes from Dmitriev’s stories in several of his works. The famous critic Vissarion Belinsky spoke very highly of Dmitriev’s poetic work, arguing that his poems bring poetry and life together in all its simplicity and beauty.
