A collection of poems by Aleksey Vasilyevich Koltsov was published in Russia after the poet’s death in 1846 by the printing house of military educational institutions. The book’s frontispiece features a portrait of the poet. The collection has a foreword written by the critic Vissarion Belinsky in which he explored the life and works of Aleksey Koltsov.
Belinsky wrote about the poet,
Koltsov was born for the poetry that he created. He was the son of the people in the true sense of this phrase. The surroundings in which he was brought up were basically the same as those of peasants, even if slightly better. Koltsov grew up among steppes and peasants. He loved with his soul, heart, and blood both Russian nature and all that is good and beautiful, that exists as a beginning, as an opportunity, in the character of a Russian villager. This was not merely a source of inspiration, a fantasy, or a dream for him, but real love.
Ivan Turgenev brought this book to Paris. In April 1850, he presented it to the writer’s wife Natalya Herzen, as evidenced by the inscription on the flyleaf. The book was donated to the museum by Léonard Rist, the French great-grandson of Alexander Herzen.
Aleksey Koltsov was born in Voronezh and lived a short life of just 33 years. Literary critics see his early poetry as attempts to imitate the styles of contemporaries such as Vasily Zhukovsky, Alexander Pushkin, and Ivan Dmitriev. In these works, Koltsov was still in pursuit of his own artistic voice. His songs that dominated his work from the early 1830s onwards are considered his main achievement.
In Voronezh, Stankevich used to go to the local library for books. There he used to meet a poor young man of humble station, modest and melancholy. It turned out that he was the son of a cattle-dealer who had business with Stankevich’s father over supplies. <…> Shyly and timidly the youth confessed that he had himself tried his hand at writing verses and, blushing, ventured to show them. Stankevich was amazed at the immense talent not conscious nor confident of itself. From that minute he did not let him go until all Russia was reading Koltsov’s songs with enthusiasm.
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