1. Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov was born in 1757 in Saint Petersburg, into a respected family of Russian aristocrats, the origins of which can be traced back to the 13th century.
14 Facts About Dmitry Khvostov
1. 2.
Dmitry Khvostov received a fine education at home, studied in a private boarding-school, and then at Moscow University.
3.
In 1772 Dmitry Khvostov joined the prestigious Preobrazhensky regiment.
4.
Dmitry Khvostov worked as a secretary in the Senate, then in the Synod.
5.
In 1831 Count Dmitry Khvostov retired, with the reputation of a perfectly honest, incorruptible bureaucrat and a very modest, good-humoured, likeable person.
6.
In 1777 Dmitry Khvostov debuted with a comedy play called A Credulous One; it was staged at the Court theater.
7.
Jean Racine's Andromaque and Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux's L'Art poetique translated by Dmitry Khvostov went through several editions.
8.
In 1791 Dmitry Khvostov was elected a member of the Russian Academy.
9.
Dmitry Khvostov was passionately in love with poetry which for sixty years remained his main interest in life.
10.
Never doubting his poetic gift, Dmitry Khvostov produced vast amounts of poetry; odes, epitaphs, elegies, madrigals, epigrams, etc.
11.
Quintessential classicism with its full set of cliches, Dmitry Khvostov's poems became an easy target for parodists.
12.
Dmitry Khvostov sent thousands of books to Russian and European universities, academies, schools, cadet headquarters, scientists and statesmen.
13.
Dmitry Khvostov's characters did the most improbable things: a dove "gnawed himself out of the net" after being entangled in "Two Doves", an ass climbed a rowan-tree and a crow dropped a piece of cheese from its 'jaws'.
14.
Dmitry Khvostov, being an extraordinarily mild and good-humoured man, endured this barrage of ridicule stoically.