Griboyedov's friend, Pushkin's epigram target: Faddey Bulgarin illustrated in the Presidential Library's collections

July 5, 2019 marks 230 years since the birth of Faddey Bulgarin (1789-1859), writer, critic and successful publisher. The electronic collections of the Presidential Library contain all seven volumes of the literary man's collected works, his critical articles, journal polemics, memoirs and letters characterizing him, on the one hand, as a devoted friend of Griboyedov, and on the other, as a permanent target for Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Baratynsky. In the history of Russian literature, Bulgarin remained as an enterprising organizer of a new journal for Russia and the author of several outstanding works.

The future publisher was born on July 5, 1789 in Minsk province, in the family of nobles from the impoverished gentry of the Commonwealth. He received his name from his father in honor of the leader of the Polish national liberation uprising of 1794, Tadeusz (Faddey) Kosciuszko. Benedict Bulgarin took an active part in the uprising and even somehow killed Russian general Voronov. However, the past of a violent parent did not prevent Faddey from enrolling in St. Petersburg in the Ground gentry corps, after which he served as a cornet in the Uhlan regiment from 1806. “Courage was not one of his virtues: often, when the battle began, he tried to be on duty at the stable”,-  one of the best friends of Bulgarin, co-publisher Nikolai Grech, frankly admits in his memoirs published in Russkaya Starina magazine (1871. Vol. 4, books 7–12, July - December).

Having participated in three wars and received a serious wound, Bulgarin considered it best to settle in St. Petersburg and do publishing work, which he was partly familiar with as the author of a number of published articles and poems in Polish. In the northern capital, he moves closer to young Russian liberals, mostly officers. In 1821, Bulgarin reads his Memories of Spain in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. He liked the military theme - he later wrote more than fifty battle scenes; in fact, Bulgarin could be called the creator of the genre of the military story.

An energetic and enterprising young man managed in a short time to become a very successful journalist and publisher. He founded the Northern Archive magazine, which was later merged with Nikolai Grech’s Son of the Fatherland magazine. Another of his projects - a brisk, skillfully commercialized newspaper "The Northern Bee" (Severnaya Pchela) with an abundance of advertising - succeeded and did not know its competitors for more than 10 years...

Criticizing various literary works in his newspaper, Faddey Venediktovich was often guided not by their artistic merit, but by his personal relationships with writers. He often delivered a preemptive strike to his potential competitors - journalism became for him, above all, a good source of income. Simple, bright, intelligible texts made "Bee" (Pchela)  one of the most popular publications. While the capital's writers coldly and bitterly criticized Bulgarin, the reader voted for him with his wallet.

Having found out that Pushkin and Delvig are plotting to publish the Literary Gazette, Bulgarin publishes the feuilleton to the glorified poet: “He is a natural Frenchman who serves Bachus and Plutus more earnestly than the Muses, who in his writings did not find any high thought the heart is cold and dumb, and the head is a kind of trinket filled with explosive rhymes”, - the words of Bulgarin about Pushkin are quoted by N. Grech in his memoirs.

For several years, the hostility of Bulgarin continued with N. A. Polev, who began to publish Telegraph at the same time as Northern Bee.

Griboyedov also belonged to this “party”, with whom Bulgarin, surprisingly, had a real male friendship. His memoirs about the poet and diplomat, published in the collection “Alexander Griboyedov: his life and death in the memoirs of his contemporaries" (1929) are considered among the best in this genre. Arriving in St. Petersburg, the Muscovite Griboyedov usually settled in the modest house of Bulgarin on the Vyborg side. The publisher managed to notice in the author of “Woe from Wit” the most essential: “Often he was displeased with himself, saying how little he had done for literature.  

Friends had long conversations, discussing the most intimate topics. Immediately after the joint walks, Bulgarin sat down at the table and hastily wrote down the topic of the last conversation with his unusual interlocutor. For example: “He found special pleasure in visiting the temples of God. “My dear friend”, he told me, “only in the temples of God Russian people gather together; they think and pray in Russian. In the Russian Church I am in the fatherland, in Russia. I am moved by the thought that the same prayers were read under Vladimir, Dmitry Donskoy, Monomakh, Yaroslavl, in Kiev, New Town, Moscow; that the same singing touched their hearts, the same feelings animated devout souls. We are Russians only in church, and I want to be Russian!"".

... Bulgarin began to write in Polish, fought in 1812 on the side of Napoleon, blamed Pushkin for African descent, was buried in Dorpat, and many of his judgments caused violent controversy... But his active work as a writer, critic and publisher, without a doubt, played a significant role in the development of Russian journalism and publishing.