portrait of Butovskaya, spouse of I. G. Butovsky
journalist translator memoirist
Ivan Grigoryevich Butkovsky was born in 1785 in the village of Pronozovka, Kiev Viceroyalty, Russian Empire (now Poltava Region, Ukraine). He originated from the nobility. His father Grigory Aleksandrovich Butovsky served in the Yellow Hussars Regiment. Ivan Butkovsky was a cousin of Nadezhda Andreyevna Durova – the first known female officer in the Russian military.
Ivan Grigoryevich served in the civil service: in 1798 he worked as the clerk of the Kiev Provincial Government, in 1801 as a collegiate registrar. At the end of 1803, he transferred to military service: firstly, he held the position of Podpraporshchik of the Infantry Regiment and from 1807 he served a Praporshchik of the First Regiment of Chasseurs. He participated in the military campaigns of 1805-1807, including the battle of Austerlitz, he witnessed the meeting of Alexander I with Napoleon, about which he left the memories published in the 50s. In the year of 1809, he was transferred to the 1st Finland Battalion. Since 1810 he was a lieutenant; in 1813 he retired due to his illness being in the rank of Staff Captain. From 1813 to 1819 he was a commissioner of the Commissariat Department, and in 1821 he retired.
Ivan Grigoryevich began his literary activities in 1821 and for 8 years he carried out translations (mainly from French) in the journal called Son of the Fatherland published by Nikolai Grech. He specialized in a variety of fields, such as history, religion, diplomacy, geography, medicine, etc.; however, history was the subject of his sustained interest. For many years he worked on a translation of The History of the Crusades written by Joseph Francois Michaud. This work was positively noted by many reviewers for being socially useful.
Ivan Grigoryevich made the first in Russia complete translation of Blaise Pascal's Thoughts, which was unanimously approved by the reviewers. Thanks to translation activities, relatively large strata of the Russian educated society managed to become acquainted with the author’s philosophy and personality. In his own preface to About the Life of Pascal and His Works, he spoke of the desired characteristic of a scientist and thinker.
In 1836, being in Paris, Ivan Grigoryevich turned to Ivan Turgenev with a proposal for cooperation in Pushkin's magazine Sovremennik. Previously, such a proposal was categorically rejected by Peter Vyazemsky, according to whom Butkovsky’s participation would be useless and even harmful. In the same year, Ivan Grigoryevich published the book The Cavalry Maiden by Nadezhda Durova, and as Durova complained later, he made a number of corrections to the text of her memoir. As a memoirist, he appeared in 1858, printing his memoirs in Russky Invalid (Russian military newspaper). These were The First War of Emperor Alexander I against Napoleon in 1805, The Second Epoch of Alexander's Struggle with Napoleon, and The Third Glorious Epoch of Alexander I's Struggle with Napoleon. His last work is a plagiarism-related revision of the History of the War of 1812 by Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky (Butkovsky himself did not participate in this war). The first and second parts of the memoirs are distinguished by Butkovsky’s good knowledge of the soldier, life, the saturation with accurate observations of soldiers over the "foreign" way of life, the widespread introduction of vernacular, proverbs and sayings.
Ivan Grigoryevich had a wife whose name is unknown. There were 7 children in their family.
(1814-1890)
(1814-1881)
(1815-1881)
(1820-?)
(1822-1893)
(1824-?)
(1825-1871)
