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past — you will now be a second Derzhavin.” Pushkin,
in his Yevgeni Onyégin (viii. 2), recalls, with emotion,
these encouraging words which his predecessor in the
poetic art gave him by the way.
Derzhavin began as the imitator of Lomonósof’s
bombastic style with the broad, cold pathos. His ode
“God,” admired and celebrated in its time, corresponds
to the import of the religious odes of Baggesen in the
Danish literature. It must be owing to the subject that
the poem has been translated into a great many different
tongues, and last of all into the Japanese. It contains
everything which such a hymn must contain of gratitude
and humility, on the part of the very small towards the
eternal greatness, but no genuine emotion and not an
idea. The long-winded poem which won Catherine’s
favor is far better. It surprises us agreeably on coming
from the Klopstock bombast of earlier days. It keeps
to the earth, is jocular and sportive, adopts a tone like
that which Horace assumed towards Mæcenas, in the
broad description of the worldly-minded laziness of the
poet in comparison with the life full of responsibility
of the regent. The poem “The Great” has no longer
any poetic, but a historic and psychological interest,
because, without mentioning any names, it contains a
disparaging description of Potemkin (pronounced Patyómkin)
in contrast to other unappreciated but really great
Russians. Our respect for the poet is, however,
somewhat diminished, from the fact that he himself was
indebted to Potemkin’s energetic protection for his escape
in a lawsuit brought against him by some bitter enemies,
so that gratitude ought to have restrained him from
giving utterance to his ill humor. He also, at a later period,
commemorated Potemkin’s solitary death in the middle
of the steppes in his poem “The Waterfall.”
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