Background
Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky was born on July 23, 1792, in Moscow City, Russian Federation. His parents were a Russian prince of Rurikid stock, Prince Andrey Vyazemsky, and an Irish lady, Jenny O'Reilly.
1865
Prince Vyazemsky
Petersburg Jesuit boarding school
Three daughters: Praskovya, Nadezhda and Maria
Princess Vera Fedorovna
Young Vyazemsky
Prince Vyazemsky in old age
academician literary critic poet
Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky was born on July 23, 1792, in Moscow City, Russian Federation. His parents were a Russian prince of Rurikid stock, Prince Andrey Vyazemsky, and an Irish lady, Jenny O'Reilly.
Pyotr Andreyevich received a brilliant home education, and after that, he studied in the Petersburg Jesuit boarding school. In 1807 he returned to Moscow where he took private lessons by professors of Moscow University. Many prominent Russian poets like I.I. Dmitriev, V.A. Zhukovsky used to come to Moscow house of the Vyazemsky family and their Ostafyevo estate near Moscow. Great influence on the young Prince had N.M. Karamzin, who became his guardian when his father passed away.
During the Great Patriotic War of 1812 the gentleman of the monarch's bed chamber (Kammerjunker) Pyotr Andreyevich, like many Russian aristocrats, entered volunteer corps, took part in the Battle of Borodino. Literary ties, which developed during these years, determined the life and career of the poet. He became close friends with V.A. Zhukovsky, V.L. Pushkin, D.V. Davydov, K.N. Batyushkov, and other poets-supporters of Karamzin. In 1815 to oppose the conservative society of the Lovers of the Russian Word led by A.S. Shishkov they set up the literary society called “Arzamas”.
In 1817 Pyotr Andreyevich succeeded in getting the position of Collegiate Assessor and a post of foreign correspondence official in the office of N.N. Novosiltsev in Warsaw. In 1820 he signed the note on the liberation of peasants, sent by Count M.S. Vorontsov to the Emperor Alexander I. As a result, Pyotr Andreyevich was dismissed and several years lived in disgrace under secret surveillance.
By this time Pyotr Andreyevich has become a recognized lyric poet, whose elegies were highly appreciated by Pushkin. In the verses of Vyazemsky (Petersburg, 1818; Indignation, 1820) were expressed his opposition views.
In 1829 Pyotr Andreyevich started looking for a chance to enter the service. Due to the efforts of Zhukovsky and Grand Prince Constantine in 1830, the poet took the position of an official of special commissions at the Ministry of Finance and occupied the position until 1846. He lived in Petersburg, Moscow, and Ostafyevo estate, travelled to Italy, Germany, France and England. In 1839 he was elected the full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Between the 1860s-70s, having reached high public status - being a wine keeper (Oberschenk) of the court, Senator and member of the State Council - Pyotr Andreyevich lived mainly abroad.
During the last decade of his life, Pyotr Andreyevich wrote memoir essays about the mode of life of the nobility in the "pre-fire", "Griboyedov’s" Moscow. From 1813 he had been keeping notebooks — a valuable document, that features evidence of not eminent contemporaries, anecdotes, thoughts, household news, documents. In 1870 the Prince published part of this material entitled "An old notebook."
Pyotr Andreyevich supported the constitutional monarchy, civil rights, and freedoms. Having refused to participate in secret societies, he entered the history of the Decembrist movement as a "Decembrist without December" (expression of literary critic S.N. Durylin). Feeling very hurt after the reprisal against the Decembrists, Pyotr Andreyevich remained committed to radical beliefs and in 1828 he wrote one of his best satires "Russian God."
Pyotr Andreyevich and the other leading Russian liberals were all heavily shaped by the Kantian teachings of Aleksandr Kunitsyn, and often discussed their attitudes on serfdom, the Russian administration and legal system, civil society, and foreign policy through private correspondence, where Pyotr Andreyevich was highly critical of the administrations' abuses in the western province. He also published a prospectus declaring an "uncompromising war to all the prejudices, vices, and absurdity that reign in our society."
Pyotr Andreevich had eight children, however only one of them - Pavel Petrovich - lived to a ripe old age.