Vladimir Bogdanovich Bronevsky was a Russian publicist, memoirist, and military writer. For a long time, he served in the Navy and set forth his impressions of military campaigns in a series of books Notes of a Naval Officer. After resigning as a major-general, telling in his memoirs about the travels.
Background
Vladimir Bogdanovich Bronevsky was born in 1784 (according to other sources in 1782 or 1786) in the Smolensk province (now Smolensk, Russian Federation) in a noble family. His father, Bogdan Mikhailovich, was a retired ensign. The family had 8 sons and a daughter.
Education
In 1794, Vladimir Bogdanovich entered the Naval Cadet Corps. In 1802, he graduated in the rank of michman.
Career
After graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps, Vladimir Bogdanovich was enlisted in the Baltic Fleet. In 1805-1810 he participated in military campaigns in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas, visiting England, Portugal, Italy, and several other states. In 1810, he was granted a furlough to restore health. From 1812 to 1816 he commanded small vessels in the Black Sea Fleet. Vladimir Bogdanovich retired due to illness with the rank of captain-lieutenant.
From 1818 Vladimir Bogdanovich began to publish excerpts from the Notes of the Naval Officer in various journals. In 1819 they were first published as a separate book. These stories were based on Bronevsky’s memoirs about the service. Also, at the request of A. Shishkov, Vladimir Bogdanovich received officer documents at his disposal, which were also used in writing the Notes. Notes of the Naval Officer received extremely positive reviews from critics: they were praised for the liveliness of the narrative, the keenness of observation, and the organic combination of military memoirs and historical and ethnographic travel. In 1818, P. Svinyin tried to use the materials of the Notes in his work, almost completely copying the content of the essays, but reader sympathies were on the side of Vladimir Bogdanovich, so Svinyin's work did not receive any attention.
In 1819, Vladimir Bogdanovich took up the post of inspector at the Tula Alexander noble military school. He also actively participated in the cultural life of Tula: he created a society to translate the works of W. Scott (the novel Guy Mannering or The Astrologer was translated). Also in Tula, Vladimir Bogdanovich published Review of the southern coast of Taurida in 1815. This book was a collection of data about the history, ethnography, geography, nature, and sights of the Crimea, as well as Bronevsky’s reasoning about the economic possibilities of this territory.
In 1820, Vladimir Bogdanovich began to publish his own weekly Vedomosti, but it didn't receive any special attention. In the same period, he began to work on a sequel to the Notes of a Naval Officer. In the Letters of a Naval Officer, he relied on the diaries of N. Korobka, who participated in 1804-1810 in the Mediterranean campaigns. A peculiar continuation of these two books is the two-volume Traveling from Trieste to Saint Petersburg in 1810, published in 1828. In one of the parts of this book named Traveling to Hungary, Vladimir Bogdanovich described the culture, ethnography, and folklore of the southern and western Slavs of the early 19th century.
In early 1828, Vladimir Bogdanovich was transferred to the Page Corps as an assistant director. A year later, he became a member of the Russian Academy and a member of the Society of History and Antiquities of Russia. In 1832, he retired with the rank of major-general.
After retiring, he devoted himself to literature. In 1834 he published The History of the Don Army: Description of the Don Land and Trip to the Caucasus. In the first two parts of the books, he compiled the historical works of N. Karamzin, N. Bantysh-Kamensky, N. Polevoy, V. Sukhorukov. The third part of the book Description of the Don Land was a history essay by Bronevsky, in which he spoke in detail about ancient rites and the modern life of the region. In the Trip to the Caucasus, the fourth part of the book, Vladimir Bogdanovich wrote about his stay in Novocherkassk and Pyatigorsk. This work received a negative reaction from critics for its historical unreliability. In 1835, Vladimir published a critical analysis of the History of the Pugachev Riot by A. Pushkin, where he condemned the lack of romantic beauty and moralization in the poet's work. In response, Pushkin criticized the History of the Don Army for sacrificing historical truth for the sake of artistry.
In the last years of his life, Vladimir Bogdanovich worked on the history of the Patriotic War of 1812, prepared textbooks on military affairs, and edited articles on the naval theme. According to unconfirmed information, he also worked on Russian Folk Tales Compiled by Bogdan Bronnitsyn, which are considered the best collection of tales of the 18-19 centuries.
Politics
Vladimir Bogdanovich spent most of his life in military service or working at educational institutions controlled by the monarchy. Also, he was not seen in relation with the Decembrists and other rebels. So according to existing data he was loyal to the Emperor.
Personality
The travels that Vladimir Bogdanovich made while serving in the Navy allowed him to create a historically believable and detailed description of the geography, ethnography, and culture of states far from the Russian Empire. At the same time, as the History of the Don Army showed, he could sacrifice the historicity of the story for the sake of its colorfulness.