Nikolay Gnedich Explained

Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Гне́дич
Birth Date:	13 February 1784
Birth Place:	Poltava, Russian Empire
Death Place:	Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Alma Mater:	Imperial Moscow University (1802)

Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich (Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Гне́дич|p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ˈɡnʲedʲɪtɕ|a=Nikolay Ivanovich Gnyedich.ru.vorb.oga;  -) was a Ukrainian-born Russian poet and translator best known for his idyll The Fishers (1822). His translation of the Iliad (1807–29) is still the standard one.

Alexander Pushkin assessed Gnedich's Iliad as "a noble exploit worthy of Achilles" and addressed to him an epistle starting with lines "With Homer you conversed alone for days and nights..."^[1]

Pushkin also penned an epigram in Homeric hexameters, which unfavourably compares one-eyed Gnedich with the blind Greek poet:

He also wrote Don Corrado de Gerrera (1803), probably the first example of Russian Gothic fiction.^[2]

References

Bibliography

• Book: Imperial Moscow University: 1755-1917: encyclopedic dictionary . A. Andreev, D. Tsygankov . Moscow . 2010 . Russian political encyclopedia (ROSSPEN) . 167–168 . 978-5-8243-1429-8. Imperial Moscow University.

Notes and References

1. Web site: To Gnedich . Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin . https://web.archive.org/web/20050521092316/http://oldpoetry.com/poetry/3037/showline=1 . 2005-05-21 . Oldpoetry.
2. The Gothic-fantastic in nineteenth-century Russian literature, Neil Cornwell, p. 59.