Batyushkov Is Not Ill

20 hrs. 3 min.

Language Russian

Author Gleb Shulpyakov

Narrator Kirill Petrov

Description

The book “Batyushkov is not ill” is a literary study of the fate and work of Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov (1787–1855), one of the least deciphered and most paradoxical classics of the golden age of Russian poetry. A mental illness struck him early, yet his legacy turned out to be so deep that it continues to hypnotize readers. Generation after generation “deciphers” Batyushkov anew, and this book is yet another attempt to understand him.

Writer Gleb Shulpyaкov lovingly recreates the circumstances of Batyushkov’s personal, literary, and social everyday life, in which the poet’s being leaves its imprint. On the pages, his friends and loved ones come alive, beloved poets and artists, as well as the literary intrigues and scandals of that time. Together with Batyushkov, the reader travels through Germany, France, England, and Italy, experiences the historical events of 1812—the Battles of the Nations and the taking of Paris—of which he was both a witness and a participant.