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 and a Turkish slave girl, was educated in Moscow. 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”. He was enthusiastic about India in the spirit of Romanticism, but knew not 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.
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. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vasily-Andreyevich-Zhukovsky);*S. F. Ol’denburg, Izv. Ross. AN VI:12, 1918:18 (= Az. sbornik 1918), 2039-2068; *Russian Vikipedija, long article with several portraits.
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