Kozlov's Translations of Two English Romantic Poems (1) (Ivan Ivanovic Kozlov‪)‬

The paragon of nineteenth-century Russian poet-translators was Vasilij Andreevic Zukovskij (1783-1852), but he was by no means the only Russian poet of the time who was a brilliant translator. Karamzin (1766-1823), Gnedic (1784-1833), and Batjuskov (1787-1855), for example, as well as Lermontov (1814-41) and Puskin himself (1799-1837), produced translations that live. And Zukovskij's friend and protege Ivan Ivanovic Kozlov (1779-1840), though mainly popular among his contemporaries for his verse-tale Cernec (The Monk), is remembered in the twentieth century for translations of two poems long believed by Russians to be the work of Lord Byron but actually written by two Irishmen, both products of Trinity College, Dublin: "The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna" by Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) and "Those Evening Bells" by Thomas Moore (1779-1852). (2) Of Kozlov, his mentor Zukovskij wrote, "Misfortune made him a poet." Like other young aristocrats of his day, he completed a few years' military service in an elite regiment, then lived a somewhat dissipated and aimless life until he began to lose his sight in 1819. By 1821 he was totally blind. Having squandered his inheritance, he then turned to literature for his livelihood, and in 1825 his immensely popular The Monk appeared. The same date is assigned by N. M. Gajdenkov to Kozlov's translation of Charles Wolfe's "The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna." Gajdenkov assigns a date of 1828 to Kozlov's second great translation, his version of Thomas Moore's "Those Evening Bells." Collected editions of Kozlov's poetry appeared in 1828, 1833, 1834, and (posthumously under the editorship of Zukovskij) 1840. During his last years the blind Kozlov lost his speech and hearing as well. (3) It is scarcely possible to overstate the extent of Kozlov's indebtedness to Zukovskij and of Zukovskij's influence over him. According to Irina Semenko, "Kozlov followed Zhukovsky in his lyrical 'sadness' and 'thoughtfulness,' as well as in his deliberately 'poeticizing' style. He differed from Zhukovsky in the greater intensity of his plaints and the dominance of lamentation." For Kozlov, "Zhukovsky's poetry was ... the source of his strength and support in personal misfortune...." Zukovskij, in short, according to Semenko, was Kozlov's "teacher and model in the fullest sense of the word." (4)