Profile of Aleksandr Griboyedov on Famous Like Me

Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov (Александр Сергеевич Грибоедов in Russian) (January 15, 1795 - February 11, 1829) was a Russian diplomat, playwright, and composer, whose brilliant comedy in verse, Wit Works Woe, is the most often staged play in Russia.

Griboyedov (alternative transcription: Griboedov) studied at the Moscow State University from 1810 to 1812. He then obtained a commission in a hussar regiment, but resigned it in 1816. Next year, Griboyedov entered the civil service, and in 1818 was appointed secretary of the Russian legation in Persia, whence he was transferred to Georgia. He had commenced writing early, and had produced on the stage at St.Petersburg in 1816 a comedy in verse called The Young Spouses (Молодые супруги), which was followed by other pieces of the same kind. But neither these nor the essays and verses which he wrote would have been long remembered but for the immense success gained by his comedy in verse Wit Works Woe (Горе от ума, or Gore ot uma), a satire upon Russian aristocratic society.

This work, also translated as "Woe from Wit", is a satire upon Russian society, or, as a high official styled it, "a pasquinade on Moscow," its plot is slight, its merits consisting in its accurate representation of certain social and official types-such as Famusov, the lover of old abuses, the hater of reforms; his secretary, Molchanin, servile fawner upon all in office; the aristocratic young liberal and Anglomaniac, Repetilov; contrasted with whom is the hero of the piece, Chatsky, the ironical satirist, just returned from the west of Europe, who exposes and ridicules the weaknesses of the rest, his words echoing that outcry of the young generation of 1820 which reached its climax in the military insurrection of 1825, and was then sternly silenced by Nicholas I. Although rooted in the classical French comedy of Molière, the characters are as much individuals as types, and the interplay between society and individual is a sparkling dialectical give-and-take. It is no coincidence that one of the main settings for the satire of Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita is named after Griboyedov.

Griboyedov spent the summer of 1823 in Russia, completed his play and took it to St.Petersburg. There it was rejected by the censorship. Many copies were made and privately circulated, but Griboyedov never saw it published. The first edition was printed in 1833, four years after his death. Only once did he see it on the stage, when it was acted by the officers of the garrison at Yerevan. Soured by disappointment, he returned to Georgia, made himself useful by his linguistic knowledge to his relative Count Ivan Paskevich during a campaign against Persia, and was sent to St.Petersburg with the treaty of 1828. Brilliantly received there, he thought of devoting himself to literature, and commenced a romantic drama, A Georgian Night (Грузинская ночь, or Gruzinskaya noch'). But he was suddenly sent to Persia as Minister Plenipotentiary. Soon after his arrival at Teheran, agents of the British government instigated a crowd of religious fanatics to storm the Russian embassy. Griboyedov was killed, and his body was for three days so ill-treated by the mob that it was at last recognized only by an old scar on the hand, due to a wound received in a duel. It was taken to Tiflis, and buried in the monastery of Saint David. There, a momument was erected to his memory by his widow Nina (daughter of his friend Prince Chavchavadze), to whom he had been but a few months married.

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.

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