TYUTCHEV Fedor Ivanovich (1803-1873, Tsarskoe Selo), poet and diplomat. He graduated from the Philological Faculty of Moscow University in 1821. In 1822 he went to St. Petersburg for the first time, here he began work at the Collegium of Foreign Affairs (he stayed at the house of Count A.I. Osterman-Tolstoy at 9 Galernaya Street). In 1822-44 he rendered diplomatic service abroad. He lived in St. Petersburg intermittently from 1844 to 73; at that time he was attached to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was appointed senior censor in 1848. From 1858 to the end of his days he was in the chair of the Committee for Foreign Censorship. In St. Petersburg, Tyutchev, being a brilliant wit, was heartily welcomed in the aristocratic salons. Despite having become a major Russia poet already by the early 1830s, Tyutchev remained practically unknown to an average reader for a long time, despite the fact that a selection of his poems was published in Pushkin's Sovremennik in 1836. He won the recognition of public only after N.A. Nekrasov's article Russian Minor Poets (Sovremennik, 1850), and after his first collection of poems appeared in St. Petersburg in 1854. St. Petersburg retains the memory of the dramatic history of poet's relationship with E.A. Denisyeva, an affair which found its reflection in the masterpieces of his love lyrics. The subject of St. Petersburg is of minor significance for Tyutchev's poetry (I Stood by the Neva, My Gaze.., 1844; On the Neva, 1850; and some others). From 1854 he occupied the house of the Armenian Church (42 Nevsky Prospect; memorial plaque). He was buried at Novodevichye cemetery.
References: Чулков Г. И. Летопись жизни и творчества Ф. И. Тютчева. М.; Л., 1933; Пигарев К. В. Жизнь и творчество Тютчева. М., 1962; Бунатян Г. Г. Город муз: Лит. памят. места г. Пушкина. СПб., 2001; Кругликова М. С. Два дома Армянской церкви // Дома рассказывают. СПб., 2001. Вып. 1. С. 95-136.
D. N. Cherdakov.
