Vasily Petrovich Alferiev

Background

Vasily Petrovich Alferiev was born on April 13, 1823 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation. He was the son of the director of the provincial gymnasium and Nizhny Novgorod schools.

Education

When Vasily Petrovich was ten years old, he was sent to the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages in Moscow, from which he graduated with honors in 1837.

Career

In 1840-1843 Vasily Petrovich served in the Office of the Moscow Governor General, then in the Economic Department of the Ministry of the Interior Affairs (left in 1844), in the Postal Department (since 1846) and at the Saint Petersburg Post Office (since 1853); served as Collegiate Secretary (since 1851).

Vasily Petrovich Alferiev’s first known work is the religiously embellished poem "The Holy Fool. The Legend" (1841). In 1846 he published the novel "The Picture, or The Adventures of Two Small Men. A joke", combining real and fantastic episodes and images. However, the "joke" did not succeed: the imitation of the "great Hoffmann" (according to Vasily Petrovich) turned out to be very superficial, and the "comic" imitation (as if a parody) of the authors of "nonfictional stories" – a simple duplication of "daguerreotypists".

In the semi-fantastic elegiac poem "The Cloak" (1848), traditionally romantic motives are presented with author’s irony, and yet criticism unanimously recognized the poem as a pale "Byron duplication".

Along with romantic experiments, Vasily Petrovich composed poetic inserts for "Picture" in a different – reduced and colloquial – manner. Playful story in verse "The Coat" (1852) became a successful experience with the use of that manner. Over time, Vasily Petrovich became interested in a realistic manner, as evidenced by translations of Beranger.

Many of Alferiev’s poems were not published: 8 of them were among the papers of V.A. Zhukovsky transferred to the State Public Library.

Connections

Vasily Petrovich was married and had a few children. One of his sons, Jerome was a journalist and a publicist (1849-1886). His wife and children were Lutheran.

Son:

Alferiev Jerome Vasilievich

colleague:

Lev Mei

colleague:

Fedor Glinka

colleague:

Vasily Kurochkin

colleague:

Yakov Polonsky

colleague:

Vladimir Benediktov

colleague:

Mikhail Mikhailov

colleague:

Nikolay Nekrasov

References

• Russian writers. 1800-1917. Biographical Dictionary. Volume 1
  1989