Derzhavin: A Biography

Chapter 5

      the governorship dragged on until summer and culminated in an unexpected way. Derzhavin was appointed not to Kazan but to Olonets province. Kazan would have been immeasurably more convenient for him.He knew the local needs and conditions,had acquaintances in the town and throughout the province—and, most of all, his own lands, which needed a master’s eye, would have been right nearby. However, such was the will of the empress. Olonets province was one of those that had only recently been created. It was to be inaugurated in December, and the ukase appointing Derzhavin was issued in May. Derzhavin took a leave and went to Kazan with his wife.There grief awaited him. Fyokla Andreevna had passed away three days before their arrival. For the rest of his life he was to repent having put off this trip for so long. But what was to be done?The Derzhavins mourned his mother, visited the villages that he was not fated to manage after all, and returned to the capital. All of their household goods,which they had sent to Kazan needlessly,they now brought back with them. The preparations for moving to Olonets province required a lot of time and effort.They had to pay off their debts and make a lot of purchases. In addition, Derzhavin impetuously took upon himself a completely superfluous and excessive expenditure. Since the treasury was distributing very little money toward furnishing the governor’s house and government offices, he decided to furnish virtually all of them at his own expense and purchased a load of furniture. He was forced to enter into new debts and even pawn his wife’s earrings.The cherished snuffbox, the gift of Felitsa, also went to a pawnbroker. Finally everything was ready.Their belongings and furniture were sent ahead by boat, and at the beginning of October, having bid the empress farewell in her 5 study, Derzhavin himself set off on his way. He traveled with a whole string of carts,taking with him not only servants but also functionaries hired in Petersburg, including his secretary, Gribovsky.When he learned of Derzhavin’s departure, Vyazemsky issued a prediction as strange in form as it was gloomy in content. “Worms will crawl through my nose,” he said,“before Derzhavin can manage to stay in his governorship.” * * * * * A governorship, even of Olonets, held much attraction for Derzhavin. It was an unquestionable promotion in service, promised lively and varied activities, and led the way to what Derzhavin saw as his calling: the direct dissemination of lawfulness in places where in the past there had been very little understanding of it. Much work was to be done, but work had never scared him off. In comparison with Petersburg, where he lived in too animated a manner and worries followed worries, the Olonets backwoods seemed like a vacation spot to him. Eleven years earlier he had galloped off to suppress Pugachov,and since that time he had not experienced a single day of peace (and before that there was also little peace). He dreamed of a patriarchal life dedicated to official and poetic efforts. Derzhavin:A Biography  Map of Olonets Province. Lithograph. . E.Treiman. As far as the backwoods was concerned, his reckoning was true. Eighty years earlier, at the spot where the Lososinka River flowed into Lake Onega, Peter the Great had built an artillery factory. Gradually houses surrounded it and a settlement formed, which in the beginning did not even have its own name, being called simply Peter’s Factory [zavod]. It was pronounced the uyezd town of Petrozavodsk in , and now it had become the provincial capital of the newly created Olonets province. It was populated by merchants, petit bourgeois, and raznochintsy1—in all three thousand people of both sexes.Around the town, as far as theWhite Sea itself, were dense forests, cliffs covered with pine trees, and impassable swamps and tundra. In winter there was practically no day and in summer no night. Through the tundra flowed clear, freshwater rivers that at times formed lakes or cascaded from cliffs in turbulent waterfalls.The rivers were abundant with fish and the forests with game. In summer clouds of midges swarmed across the tundra. But there were few people: in , square versts there were in all , inhabitants,including Laplanders,Karelians,and Russians (mostly schismatics).This came to one and...