Drozhzhin S. Ways-roads. Selected songs.

Drozhzhin S. Ways-roads. Selected songs.

Moscow Federation. One thousand nine hundred twenty nine Edition of 2000 copies. 112 pages. Softcover, size 13 x 17 cm. Good condition, private library stamp and label on half title.

Spiridon Dmitrievich Drozhzhin (6 (18) December 1848-24 December 1930) was a Russian poet.

He was born on December 6 (18), 1848 in a family of serfs in the village of Nizovka, Tver province. I studied at school for two incomplete winters, then my mother sent my twelve-year-old son to work in Saint Petersburg.

The next years of Drozhzhin's life were spent wandering around Russia, he changed many professions.

In St. Petersburg (1860-1871), he studied self-education, got acquainted with the works of Nikolai Nekrasov, Alexey Koltsov, Ivan Nikitin, Leo Tolstoy, and others.

At the age of 16, Drozhzhin wrote his first poem, and in 1867 he began a diary that he kept until the end of his life.

The first publication of Drozhzhin in the magazine "Gramotey" (1873). Since that time Drozhzhina began to be published in many magazines: "Delo", "Slovo", "family evenings", "Russian wealth", "Awakening", etc., including tverskikh — "Tverskoy Vestnik" (1878-1882).

Due to the poor financial situation and under the influence of meetings with Leo Tolstoy (1892, 1897), he returned to his homeland (1896), devoting himself to literary work. In 1903, the "Circle of writers from the people" organized an evening dedicated to the 30th anniversary of S. D. Drozhzhin's poetic activity; one of the organizers of the evening was Ivan Bunin, who called Drozhzhin "the most gifted self-taught poet".

The Academy of Sciences awarded Drozhzhin a lifetime pension in 1903; in 1910 — a prize for the collections "Cherished songs", "Poems 1866-1888", "New Russian songs", "Bayan"; in 1915 — an honorary review named after A. S. Pushkin for the collection"Songs of the old Plowman".

He died on December 24, 1930 and was buried in the village of Shosha.