This book is a biography of the great Russian poet V.A. Zhukovsky (1783–1852), creator of a poetic system of language, rhythms, and images, on the basis of which the poetry of Pushkin and many other Russian poets of the 19th century and the early 20th century grew. V.A. Zhukovsky kindly involved himself in the fate of many writers: Pushkin, Kozlov, Baratynsky, Küchelbecker, Gogol, Shevchenko, and others—as well as the Decembrists exiled to Siberia. The book uses documentary materials accumulated by literary scholarship over 133 years since the poet’s death. This is his first complete biography.