Alexander
Sergeyevich Griboyedov (15 January 1795 – 11 February 1829) was a Russian
diplomat, playwright, poet, and composer. He is recognized as homo unius
libri, a writer of one book, whose fame rests on the verse comedy Woe
from Wit or The Woes of Wit.. He was Russia's ambassador to
Qajar Persia, where he and all the embassy staff were massacred by an angry
mob as a result of the rampant anti-Russian sentiment that existed through
Russia's imposing of the Treaty of Gulistan (1813) and Treaty of Turkmenchay
(1828), which had forcefully ratified for Persia's ceding of its northern
territories comprising Transcaucasia and parts of the North Caucasus.
Griboyedov had played a pivotal role in the ratification of the latter treaty.
Born in Moscow, Griboyedov studied at Moscow University from 1810 to 1812.
He then obtained a commission in a hussar regiment, which he resigned in 1816.
The next year, he entered the civil service. In 1818 he was appointed
secretary of the Russian legation in Persia, and transferred to Georgia.[3]
HHis verse comedy The Young Spouses (Molodye Suprugi), which
he staged in St. Petersburg in 1816, was followed by other similar works.
Neither these nor his essays and poetry would have been long remembered but
for the success of his verse comedy Woe from Wit (Gore ot Uma),
a satire on Russian aristocratic society.[3]
AAs a high official in the play puts it, this work is "a pasquinade on
Moscow". The play depicts certain social and official stereotypes in the
characters of Famusov, who hates reform; his secretary, Molchalin, who fawns
over officials; and the aristocratic young liberal and Anglomaniac, Repetilov.
By contrast the hero of the piece, Chatsky, an ironic satirist just returned
from western Europe, exposes and ridicules the weaknesses of the rest. His
words echo the outcry of the young generation in the lead-up to the armed
insurrection of 1825.[3]
IIn Russia for the summer of 1823, Griboyedov completed the play and took it
to St. Petersburg. It was rejected by the censors. Many copies were made and
privately circulated, but Griboyedov never saw it published.[3]
After his death the manuscript was jointly owned by his wife Nina Alexandrovna
Griboyedova and his sister Maria Sergeyevna Durnovo (Griboyedova).[4]
The first edition was not published until 1833, four years after his death.
Only once did he see it on the stage, when it was performed by the officers of
the garrison at Yerevan. Soured by disappointment, he returned to Georgia.
During the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, he put his linguistic expertise at
the service of general Ivan Paskevich, a relative; after which he was sent to
St. Petersburg where he worked on the Treaty of Turkmenchay negotiations.
There, thinking to devote himself to literature, he started work on a romantic
drama, A Georgian Night (Gruzinskaya
noch), based on Georgian legends.[3]
Even if a known to be gay, he married Nino Chavchavadze. Several months after his wedding to
Nino, 16-year-old daughter of his friend
Prince Chavchavadze, Griboyedov was suddenly sent to Persia as
Minister Plenipotentiary.
In the aftermath of the
war and the humiliating
Treaty of Turkmenchay, there was strong
anti-Russian sentiment in Persia. Soon after Griboyedov's arrival in
Tehran, a
mob stormed the
Russian embassy.
The incident began when an
Armenian
eunuch escaped from the
harem of the
Persian
shah, and at the same time two enslaved Armenian women escaped from the
harem of the Shah's son-in-law. All three sought refuge at the Russian
legation. As agreed in the
Treaty of Turkmenchay, Georgians and Armenians living in Persia at that
time were permitted to return to Georgia and
Eastern Armenia.[6]
However, the Shah demanded that Griboyedov return the three escapees.
Griboyedov refused. His decision caused an uproar throughout the city and
several thousand Persians encircled the Russian compound demanding their
release.
When Griboyedov decided to return the escaped eunuch and two Armenian
women, it was too late. Soon after, urged on by the mullahs, the mob stormed
the building. A high-ranking Muslim scholar with the title of Mojtahed, Mirza
Masih Astarabadi known as Mirza Masih Mojtahed, issued a fatwa saying that
freeing Muslim women from the claws of unbelievers is allowed.[7]
Griboyedov and other members of his mission had prepared for a siege and
sealed all the windows and doors. Armed and in full uniform, they were
resolved to defend to the last drop of blood. Although small in number, the
Cossack detachment assigned to protect the legation held off the mob for
over an hour until finally being driven back to Griboyedov's office. There,
Griboyedov and the Cossacks resisted until the mob broke through the roof of
the building, and then through the ceiling, to slaughter them. The escaped
eunuch and Griboyedov, who fought with his sword, were among the first to be
shot to death; the fate of the two Armenian women remains unknown.[6][8]
Second secretary of the mission Karl Adelung and, in particular, a young
doctor whose name is not known, fought hard, but soon the scene was one of
butchered, decapitated corpses.
Griboyedov's body, thrown from a window, was decapitated by a kebab vendor
who displayed the head on his stall.[7]
The mob dragged the uniformed corpse through the city's streets and bazaars,
to cries of celebration. It was eventually abandoned on a garbage heap after
three days of ill-treatment by the mob, such that in the end it could be
identified only by a duelling injury to a finger. The following June,
Griboyedov's friend
Alexander Pushkin, travelling through the southern Caucasus, encountered
some men from Tehran leading an oxcart. The men told Pushkin they were
conveying the ambassador's remains to Tiflis (now
Tbilisi).
Griboyedov was buried there, in the monastery of St. David (Mtatsminda
Pantheon).[7]
When Nino, Griboyedov's widow, received news of his death she gave
premature birth to a child who died a few hours later. Nino lived another
thirty years, rejecting all suitors and winning universal admiration for her
fidelity to her husband's memory.
In a move to compensate Russia for the attack and the death of its
ambassador, the Shah sent his grandson
Khosrow Mirza to St. Petersburg to avoid another war with
Tsar Nicholas I.[7][9]
and also gifted to him the
Shah
Diamond.[10]
Russian sources claim that[11]
British agents, who feared Russian influence in Tehran, and Persian
reactionaries, who were not satisfied with the Turkmenchay treaty, were
responsible for inciting the mob.[11]
The death of Griboedov, who was a liberal and who advocated regional autonomy
for the Christians in Transcaucasia, was probably not a great loss for Tsar
Nicholas or General Paskevich, both of whom wished to Russianize the
minorities in the Caucasus. The
Russo-Turkish War (1828–29) might have been another reason for the Russian
inaction.[11]
His wife had written on his tombstone in Tiflis: “Your mind and works are
immortal in Russian memory, but why has my love outlived you?”.[10]
Author Angela Brintlinger has said that "not only did Griboyedov's
contemporaries conceive of his life as the life of a literary hero—ultimately
writing a number of narratives featuring him as an essential character—but
indeed Griboedov saw himself as a hero and his life as a narrative. Although
there is not a literary artifact to prove this, by examining Griboedov's
letters and dispatches, one is able to build a historical narrative that fits
the literary and behavioural paradigms of his time and that reads like a real
adventure novel set in the wild, wild East."
One of the main settings for
Mikhail Bulgakov's satirical novel
The Master and Margarita is named after Griboyedov, as is the
Griboyedov Canal in
Central Saint Petersburg. One of the central streets of
Tbilisi,
the capital of
Georgia, is named after Griboyedov. This street is crossed by Alexander
Chavchavadze street, named after Griboyedov's father-in-law, famous Georgian
poet,
Alexander Chavchavadze.
On 17 April 1944 Pravda ran a lengthy feature on the commemoration of
Griboyedov's 150th birthday when high-ranking officials, military leaders,
diplomats, writers, and artists had attended a celebration in the
Bolshoi Theatre. Novelist and Stalin deputy
Leonid Leonov eulogized Griboyedov, mentioning especially his love of his
fatherland.
The reception to the Shah's grandson Khosrow Mirza in the
Winter Palace, and Tsar Nicholas receiving from him the Shah Diamond, are
featured in the 2002 Russian film
Russian Ark.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Griboyedov