ŽUKOVSKIJ, Vasilij Andreevič. Tula province 19.1.(9.2.)1783 — Baden-Baden 12.(24.)4.1852. Russian poet. He was illegitimate son of a landowner, Afanasij Bunin and Turkish slave girl Salkha, adopted by a family friend (hence the surname Ž.). From the age of 14 educated at Moscow University. He served in the Napoleonic War of 1812 and in 1815 joined the tsar’s entourage, becoming tutor to the heir to the throne in 1826. In 1841 he retired to Germany. A friend of Pushkin. Married 1841 in Düsseldorf Elisabeth von Return, one son and one daughter.
Žukovskij was enthusiastic about India in the spirit of Romanticism, but knew not any Indian languages. His free rendering of Nala was made from Rückert’s German version..
Publications: Nal i Damajanti. 201 p. St.P. 1844.
– Own poetry and translations of European literature, also long excerpts from the Shahname.
Sources: *Ch. Hyart, “Le poème Nal i Damajanti de V. A. Žukovskij et l’original hindou”, Annuaire de l’Inst. de philol. et d’hist. orientales et slaves (Bruxelles) 12, 1952, 185-200; life data in Enc. Brit. (www.britannica.com/biography/Vasily-Andreyevich-Zhukovsky);*S. F. Ol’denburg, Izv. Ross. AN VI:12, 1918:18 (= Az. sbornik 1918), 2039-2068; Wikipedia, more in *Russian Vikipedija, long article with several portraits.
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