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KRILOFF (or KRuILov), See also: great See also: national fabulist of See also: Russia, was See also: born on the 14th of See also: February 1768, at Moscow, but his early years were spent at Oren-See also: burg and See also: Tver
.
His See also: father, a distinguished military officer, died in 1779; and See also: young Kriloff was See also: left with no richer patrimony than a chest of old books, to be brought up by the exertions of a heroic See also: mother
.
In the course of a few years his mother removed to St See also: Petersburg, in the hope of securing a See also: government pension; and there Kriloff obtained a See also: post in the See also: civil service, but he gave it up immediately after his mother's See also: death in 1788
.
Already in 1783 he had sold to a bookseller a See also: comedy of his own composition, and by this means had procured for himself the See also: works of See also: Moliere, Racine, Boileau; and now, probably under the influence of. these writers, he produced Philomela and See also: Cleopatra, which gave him See also: access to the dramatic circle of Knyazhin
.
Several attempts he made to start a See also: literary See also: magazine met with little success; but, together with his plays, they served to make the author known in society
.
For about four years (1797–1801) Kriloff lived at the country seats of See also: Prince See also: Sergius Galitzin, and when the prince was appointed military governor of Livonia he accompanied him as official secretary
.
Of the years which follow his resignation of this post little is known, the See also: common opinion being that he wandered from See also: town to town under the influence of a passion for card-playing
.
Before long he found his place as a fabulist, the first collection of his !Fables, 23 in number, appearing in 1809
.
From 1812 to 1841 he held a congenial See also: appointment in the Imperial Public Library—first as assistant, and then as See also: head of the See also: Russian books department
.
He died on the 21st of See also: November 1844
.
His statue in the Summer Garden is one of the finest monuments in St Petersburg
.
Honours were showered upon Kriloff while he yet lived: the See also: Academy of Sciences admitted him a member in 1811, and be-stowed upon him its gold medal; in 1838 a great festival was held under imperial sanction to celebrate the See also: jubilee of his first
appearance as an author; and the emperor assigned him a See also: hand-some pension
.
Before his death about 77,000 copies of his Fables had found sale in Russia; and his wisdom andSee also: humour had become the common possession of the many
.
He was at once poet and See also: sage
.
His fables for the most See also: part struck See also: root in some actual event, and they told at once by their grip and by their beauty
.
Though he began as a translator and imitator he soon showed himself a master of invention, who found abundant material in the See also: life of his native See also: land
.
To the Russian ear his verse is of matchless quality; while word and phrase are See also: direct, See also: simple and eminently idiomatic, colour and cadence vary with the theme
.
A collected edition of Kriloff's works appeared at St Petersburg, 1844
.
Of the numerous See also: editions of his Fables, which have been often translated, may be mentioned that illustrated by Trutovski, 1872
.
The author's life has been written in Russian by Pletneff, by Lebanoff and by Grot, Liter. zhizn Kruilova
.
" Materials " for his life are published in vol. vi. of the Sbornik Statei of the literary department of the Academy of Sciences
.
W
.
R
.
S
.
Ralston prefixed an excellent sketch to hisSee also: English See also: prose version of the Fables (1868; 2nd ed
.
1871)
.
Another See also: translation, by T
.
H
.
See also: Harrison, appeared in 1883
.
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