who lived in the capitals, for example, Rostopchina, Pavlova, and
Bakunina—possessed these advantages.
Social Conditions for Noncanonical Men Poets
Like all the women poets, most of the noncanonical men poets enjoyed
less literary social capital than the canonical men; this because they were
some combination of lower class, poor, uneducated, non-Russian, and
provincial. Pavel Fedotov, the son of a retired lieutenant, grew up in a
large and poor Moscow family. Although he attended the élite Cadet
Corps, from which he graduated as an ensign, he struggled with poverty
for most of his life. Evgenii Mil’keev, also the son of a minor civil ser-
vant who died when Mil’keev was three, grew up in poverty in Tobol’sk
(Siberia). After four years of education at a Tobol’sk school, he worked
as a scribe. Aleksei Kol’tsov, whose father was a cattle dealer, grew up
in Voronezh, where he had less than one and a half years of schooling.
Fedor Miller was a charity student at a Lutheran school in Moscow but
managed to become certified as an apothecary’s assistant and then as a
home tutor of German and Russian literature. Eduard Guber grew up
in Saratov, spoke German as his first language, and graduated as a mil-
itary engineer from the Saint Petersburg Institute of the Transportation
Corps (Institut korpusa putei soobshcheniia).
For several of these noncanonical men poets, their lack of economicresources appears to have affected their physical and psychological re-
sources. Many died early of causes reflecting the stresses of poverty. Fe-
dotov died insane at thirty-seven. Mil’keev killed himself at age thirty-
one. Guber, whose health was undermined by lifelong poverty, died of
a heart attack at thirty-three. Kol’tstov also died at thirty-three of tuber-
culosis. The canonical men poets generally died much later (Zhukovsky
at sixty-nine, Fet at seventy-two, Tiutchev at seventy) or of causes con-
nected with their upper-class status: Pushkin at thirty-seven and Ler-
montov at twenty-seven in duels, Baratynsky at forty-four while travel-
ing abroad, Iazykov at forty-four of syphilis contracted while at the
European University of Dorpat.^4
But while literary social capital appears to have been necessary, it cer-tainly was not a sufficient condition for canonicity. Aleksei Khomiakov
and Apollon Maikov, for example, graduated from Moscow and Saint
Petersburg University, respectively, spent a great deal of time in the cap-
itals, traveled abroad, and benefited from many literary connections;
Khomiakov was married to Iazykov’s sister, and Maikov was able to
In Conclusion: Noncanonical Men Poets 169