Background
Mikhail Pavlovich Vronchenko was born in 1801 in Kopys, Orsha Raion, Vitebsk Region, Belarus. His father was Protodeacon Pavel Vronchenko, from the family of impoverished Ukrainian gentry, who resettled on Belarusian lands.
military scientist translator writer
Mikhail Pavlovich Vronchenko was born in 1801 in Kopys, Orsha Raion, Vitebsk Region, Belarus. His father was Protodeacon Pavel Vronchenko, from the family of impoverished Ukrainian gentry, who resettled on Belarusian lands.
After graduating from the Mogilev Grammar School (1819), Mikhail Pavlovich entered the Moscow University at the Mathematics Department, but in 1820 transferred to the Moscow School of Columnists, (graduated in 1822 with the rank of Praporshchik), where he was preparing for service in General stuff performing astronomical, geodetic and topographic work.
During his studies, Mikhail Pavlovich began to write and translate romantic poems. He began to write his first poems in Russian while he was a student of Mogilev gymnasium.
In 1823-1824 Mikhail Pavlovich made topographic surveys in the Vilnius province. In Vilna, he met A. Mitskevich, who showed Vronchenko the manuscript of the poem Dzyady.
In 1824-1828 Mikhail Pavlovich was sent to Dorpat University for an in-depth study of astronomy. There he made friends with N. M. Yazykov, at that time a student, who was engaged in a poetic translation of J. Byron, W. Shakespeare, T. Moore, Miscavige. Mikhail Pavlovich met Polev, in whose journal appeared his first publication which was a translation of Byron's poem Dream and further came the translations of Byron’s dramatic poem Manfred, Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet and Mickiewicz’s poem Conrad Wallenrod, which described the geography, economy, activities, life, and customs of the local population.
In 1828, in Saint Petersburg, Vronchenko’s work was first published in separate editions of Manfred and Hamlet. As a translator, he adhered to the principle of translation which is close to the original poem, and this principle was innovative for his time; translating Shakespeare, he tried to keep as much as possible in his unusual way of expressing thoughts. In general, Mikhail Pavlovich managed to convey the artistic depth and strength of the original, but the desire for accuracy, sometimes reaching literalism, made his translations, with all their merits, heavy and dark in places.
In the spring of 1828, Mikhail Pavlovich as a lieutenant was sent to Moldova, Wallachia, and Bulgaria for topographic surveys during the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829. Here he remained until 1832, continuing to translate European poets in his free hours. In 1834-1835 he made a trip to Asia Minor; the result was his work Review of Asia Minor in its current state, which described the geography, economy, occupations, life, and customs of the local population. In 1836 censorship banned the production of Macbeth in the translation of Mikhail Pavlovich, however, the next year the translation was published as a separate book.
Starting from the 1830s, Vronchenko’s translation work decreased. From 1837 to 1841, he became a member of the Transcaucasian Territory Management Commission. In 1843, he resigned from military service and transferred to the Ministry of Education (to the post of an official of special assignments in Warsaw Academic district). His last translated work was Goethe's Faust. The translation was heavily criticized by I.S. Turgenev.
In 1848, Mikhail Pavlovich returned to military service and until 1854, headed triangulation work in the Novorossiysk Territory and Volga Region, having risen to the rank of Major General. Seriously ill with consumption, he died in Kharkov, working on his poetic translation of Hamlet's To be or not to be?
Quotes from others about the person
In response to his death, I.I. Panaev wrote: "The name of Vronchenko, as the translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, Moore, Mitskevich, will remain an honorary name in Russian literature ..."
Mikhail Pavlovich was married.
