V.A. Zhukovsky and the German ruling dynasties: Johann von Sachsen

The article poses the problem of investigating the connections of V.A. Zhukovsky with representatives of the German ruling dynasties. The Russian poet's dialogue with the King of Saxony, Johann (Johann von Sachsen, 1801-1873), a gifted writer and a prominent politician, author of one of Germany's best poetic translations of The Divine Comedy by Dante is presented. The correspondence of the King and the poet is first published. The German review of The Odyssey by Zhukovsky, which became the impetus for their creative contacts in the early 1850s, is introduced. The main subject of the creative dialogue between Zhukovsky and Johann was the translation of the great poems of Homer and Dante. Active work on the translations helped, at least temporarily, to escape from the chaos and revolutionary events in Germany in 1840. Johann (King of Saxony from 1854 to 1873) was seriously engaged in the natural sciences, mathematics and theology, but with special care devoted his time to the study of ancient languages and literatures. The young prince knew Sophocles, Thucydides, Plato, Demosthenes and Aristotle in the original and impressed his mentors, Dresden scholars and lexicographers F.W. Tittmann (1784-1864) and K.A. Bottiger (1760-1835), with his talent for languages and the ability to memorize and read the original passages from the New Testament, odes of Horace and songs of Homer, whose works always accompanied him in his trips and later in the military campaigns. However, a very special place in the circle of interests of the monarchical writer belonged to the Italian literature. The King was able to find a friend able to assess his work in the Russian poet. Zhukovsky understood Dante and Homer in the same way. There is every reason to talk about the Dante period of Zhukovsky in the 1840s, and personal communication with Johann of Saxony in the early 1840s obviously facilitated Zhukovsky's active creative conceptualization of Dante's heritage. 1842-1849 was the time of upheaval in the European political arena and the most active phase of Zhukovsky's work on the Russian Odyssey and of Prince Johann's work on the last part of the translation of The Divine Comedy. Letters of Zhukovsky and Prince Johann preserved in the archives of Dresden and St. Petersburg truly reveal the nature of these relationships, as well as the subject of their creative dialogue. V.A. Zhukovsky sent his first letter from Baden-Baden on January 20, 1850 in response to the message of Johann who sent the first complete edition of the translation of The Divine Comedy to the poet. The Prince's response, sent from Dresden, is dated February 10, 1850 Correspondence between Zhukovsky and Johann of Saxony fills gaps in the study of the creative biography of the Russian Romanticist in the last years of his life, in the history of the study of the Russian Odyssey, as well as in the study of the problem of the contacts of the Russian Emperor's mentor with the German ruling dynasties. Johann of Saxony, to some extent, was a model of the monarch, the high ideal that Zhukovsky sought as a mentor of the royal family, who dedicated his Odyssey to Grand Dukes Constantine and Alexander. Communication with the Prince before moving to Germany and after it, obviously, could not but affect the evolution of views of Zhukovsky as a mentor, a statesman and a Russian poet.

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