763 



KRUILOV, IVAN ANDREEVICH. 



KUGELGEN, GERARD AND CARL VON. 



754 



which is sr.id to be not at all a superficial production, but an excellen 

 and trustworthy local history. Two series of ' Literary Studies' ar 

 to be added to the list ; and he was also the editor of a popular Wiln 

 magazine, entitled the 'Athenaeum' a title which was simultaneous!; 

 employed by three periodicals, at Wilna, at Pesth, and at London. 



KRUILOV, IVAN ANDREEVICH, the Russian La Fontaine, tb 

 undoubted head of Russian fabulists, was born at Moscow on the 

 2nd of February, Old Style (the 13th New Style) 1768. By a 

 singular coincidence the fame day half a century before was the 

 birthday of Sumarokov, also a popular fabulist, but whose fables 

 says Pletnev, are as different from Kruilov's, as earth from heaven 

 His father was a poor officer of the army, who was continually on 

 the move, and who chanced to be besieged in a fort along with his 

 family by the rebel Pugachev, in the singular outbreak of the Cossaks 

 in 1772, when he made such a resolute defence that Pugachev swore 

 he would not leave one of the family alive if he got them in hia 

 power. Fortunately for Russian literature the defence succeeded 

 and the child of four years old, who was comprehended in the threat 

 escaped. The elder Kruilov died in 1780 at Tver, leaving behinc 

 him a very respectable miscellaneous library, which the boy, now lefi 

 alone with his mother, devoured with eagerness. Amotg the books 

 were several plavs, and young Kruilov was smitten with the desire o: 

 writing one, and before he was fifteen had produced an opera callec 

 the ' Kafeiuitza,' or ' Fortune-Teller by Coffee.' When his mother 

 removed to St. Peteixburg to beg him a place as a clerk, he offeree 

 his opera to a German bookseller of the name of Breiskopf, who, 

 struck with the youth of the author, offered him sixty rubles for 

 the manuscript, which the boy took out in books, choosing the works 

 of Racine, Moliere, and Boileau. He had already while at Tver 

 learned French, by his mother's choice, from a French tutor there, 

 but though he afterwards read it well, he was never in the course ol 

 his life able to speak it fluently. At St. Petersburg he became 

 acquainted with the actors, and before he was eighteen wrote another 

 play, a tragedy, called ' Philomela,' whiuh he could not get acted, 

 but which was printed in the collection called ' The Russian Theatre,' 

 which the Princess Dashkov [DASHKOV] was bringing forth under the 

 auspices of the Russian Academy, and in which everything in a dra- 

 matic shape was readily inserted, good, bud, or indifferent. For some 

 years Kruilov, who had obtained a place as clerk in one of the public 

 offices, pursued his career as an official and a dramatist, and also occa- 

 sionally as an essayist and a journalist, and in 1801, having been 

 recommended to the Empress Maria, he was promoted to be secretary 

 to Prince Galitzin, governor of Riga, who took such a fancy to him 

 that he invited him to his country-house at Saratov, where ho staid 

 three years apparently in the enjoyment of complete indolence. He 

 wrote four or five plays, among which the 'Modnaya Lavka,' or 

 'Milliner's Shop,' and the ' Urok Dochkam,' or 'Lesson to Ladies,' 

 were tolerably successful, especially the former. But it was not till he 

 was about forty years of age that he accidentally discovered in what 

 his genius really lay. He translated some fables by La Fontaine, which 

 he showed to Dmitriev the poet, who was eminent for his success in 

 fable writing, and who at once told Kruilov to persevere. He produced 

 some original fables which were soon in every mouth, and from that 

 time he confined himself to this kind of writing, in which he soon 

 attained the most amazing popularity which has not diminished to 

 the present moment. The whole number of fables in verse composed 

 by him during his life amounted to 197, of which 37 only are taken 

 from other authors, and 160 are of his own invention. They are 

 written in so lucid a style that when read aloud they are at once 

 understood and relished by the most illiterate Russian, and yet they 

 are as much the delight of the critic as the fables of his great proto- 

 type La Fontaine. Innumerable lines in them have become pro- 

 verbial, and many happy phrases coined by Kruilov have become 

 part of the language. Several editions have been printed of the most 

 splendid, and several of the cheapest character, and it was said in 

 1854 that no less than 80,000 copies of them had been put in circu- 

 lation. When the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg was first opened 

 to the public in 1812, Kruilov was nominated to the post of one 

 of the a-sistant officers, and the emperor Alexander assigned to him 

 a p-nsion of 1500 assignat rubles (about 601.) above his salary, and 

 eight years after he doubled it, In the year 1834 the emperor 

 Nicholas doubled it again. The new year's present from the emperor 

 Nicholas to the hereditary prince, the present Alexander II , was in 

 1831 a bust of Kruilov. He was a frequent guest at the table of the 

 empress Maria, and the honoured friend of Karamzin, Zhukovsky, 

 Pushkin, and all the other celebrities of Russian literature. His 

 duties at the library were far from onerous, and he went iu fact into 

 an indolence so complete that not even his passion for the drama 

 remained, and he did not enter the inside of a theatre for ten years. 

 On one occasion however he made a singular effort one of his closest 

 friends was hia colleague at the library, Gniedich, the translator of 

 the ' Iliad,' and in a conversation with him one evening at the house 

 of Olenin, the director of the librarc, Kruilov contested the justice 

 of his opinion that it was impossible to acquire a knowledge of one of 

 the ancient languages late in life, and laid a wager that he would 

 master Ureek. The conversation dropped, and the wager, which was 

 looked upon as a joke, was soon forgotten by all of the company, 

 except Kruilov. Two years after he claimed the wager from Gniedich, 



EIOO. DIT, VOL. III. 



and offered to be put through his examination, when it was found that 

 he was a Grecian of no ordinary calibre. For these two years, 

 Kruilov, then a man of fifty, had passed his evenings over this study 

 instead of cards, and such was the result. He afterwards bought 

 and read through a collection of the Greek classics, but as he used to 

 throw the volumes underneath his bed, they were taken to light the 

 fires, and he never interfered to prevent it. His duties as librarian 

 were confined to the Russian books only, which are kept separate 

 from those in all other languages, and in which Sopikov, the author 

 of the ' Russian Bibliography,' was for some time his superior officer. 

 On the 2nd of February 1833, his attaining his seventieth year was 

 celebrated by a grand dinner of the literary men of St. Petersburg, 

 at which 300 authors are said to have been present, and on that 

 occasion the emperor, who had already conferred on him two orders 

 of knighthood, bestowed a third. He retired from his librarianship 

 in 1841, and died on the llth (or 23rd) of April 1844, of the effects 

 of indigestion. Numerous stories are current of his eccentricities of 

 character, which are told in a very exaggerated form by his French 

 biographer, Bougeault, to that in which they appear in tho pages of 

 his Russian biographer Pletnev. 



In 1823 Count Gregory Orlov printed at Paris a series of poetical 

 versions from Kruilov in French and Italian, made by some of tho 

 first poets of those countries from prose translations with which he 

 had supplied them. The result was a failure, for the liberties taken 

 by the poets destroyed iu many cases all resemblance to the original. It 

 may be doubted if an author who is idiomatic can ever be satisfactorily 

 translated, and a foreigner acquainted with Russian is often unable to 

 sea half the beauties which strike a native. It cannot be doubted 

 however, from the effect that they have produced, that the fables of 

 Kruilov are only second in excellence of execution to those of La 

 Fontaine, and he has this pre-eminence over his French competitor, 

 that he has displayed a merit to which the other has no claim namely, 

 that of invention. 



KRUiMMACHER, FRIEDRICH ADOLF, the elder of a family of 

 distinguished German clergymen, was born at Tecklenburg in West- 

 phalia, on July 13, 1768. He was educated for the church, and after 

 having been professor of theology in the University of Duisburg, ho 

 accepted the office of reformed preacher at Crefeld, which he shortly 

 exchanged for the country living of Kettwioh in Westphalia. In 1819 

 he was called to the consistorial council of Bernburg, in 1824 to Bremen, 

 and died in 1845. He was a prolific writer both in prose and verse. 

 His drama of 'Johannes' is not distinguished by much poetic or 

 dramatic feelinsr, but his hymn of Love and his Parables became 

 very popular, and the last have been translated into English. He aUo 

 wrote ' Der Hauptman Cornelius ' (' Cornelius the Centurion ') and 

 ' Das Leben des heiligen Johannes ' (' the Life of St. John '), which 

 have likewise been rendered into English. His other principal works 

 are 'Die Kinderwelt,' a book of religions poetry for children; 

 ' Leiden, Sterben, und Auferstehung unaer. Herrn Jesu Christ ' (' The 

 Sufferings, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ'); ' Ueber deu 

 Geist und die Form der evangelischen Geschichte in historischer uud 

 asthetischer Hinsicht ' (' On the Spirit and Form of Kvaugelical 

 History in its historical and sesthetical Relations'); and many other 

 works of similar character. 



GOTTFRIED DANIEL KRCMMACHER, his younger brother, was born 

 April 1st, 1774. He studied at Duisberg, became a popular preacher 

 at Baerth and Wolfrath, and in 1816 a reformed minister at Elber- 

 Feld. He was at the head of the sect of Pietists iu his district, and 

 lis sermons on the wandering of the children of Israel through the 

 wilderness to Canaan, were highly esteemed, and have been translated 

 into English. In 1838 he published 'Tagliches Manna' ('Daily 

 Manna '), a work also held in very general repute, and which has 

 appeared in English under the title of 'The Christian's Every-day 

 Book.' He died in 1837. 



FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACIIER, was the son of the first- 

 named, and the nephew of the second. He joined the reformed party, 

 and was for awhile the pastor of a reformed community at New York. 

 As a strong upholder of the older Lutheranism, he excited the dis- 

 pleasure of the adherents of Rationalism, and was accused of heresy 

 rotn the pulpit of his own father. He has produced numerous 

 works, most of which have been translated, and have been very 

 jopular in EnglanH. Among them are 'Elijah the Tishbite," ' Eli- 

 sba,' 'Relics of Elijah,' 'Solomon and the Shulamite,' 'Tempta- 

 tion of Christ,' ' Sermons on the Canticles",' ' The Church's Voice 

 of Instruction,' 'A Glance iuto the Kingdom of Grace,' 'Glimpses 

 uto the Kingdom of Grace,' &c., &c. He has latterly resided at 

 Jerlin, and has received the degree of D.D. In 1856 he visited Great 

 Britain, and was present at the annual conference of the Evangelical 

 Alliance at Glasgow in August. In the course of his speech at one 

 >f the meetings he took occasion to repel as " an infamous calumny " 

 he assertions of some of the English journals as to the inebriety of 

 he king of Prussia. 



KOUELGBN, GERHARD AND CARL VON, twin brothers and 

 listinguished painters, were boru at Bacharach on the Rhine, in 1772. 

 'heir father was Hof-kamrnerrath, exchequer counsellor, in the service 

 f the elector of Cologne, who in 1791 sent the twins to complete their 

 tudies in Rome after they had made sufficient progress at home. 

 Gerhard painted history and portrait ; and Carl, landscape. Gerhard 



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