Kuchelbecker W.K. (1797-1846), poet, decembrist

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KUCHELBECKER Wilhelm Karlovich (1797, St. Petersburg - 1846), poet, decembrist, retired Collegiate Assessor. On graduating from Tsarskoe Selo Lycee (1817, classmate of A.S.Pushkin), served in the Collegium for Foreign Affairs, concurrently lectured Russian literature and Latin at the Noble Boarding School of the Main Pedagogical Institute (164 Fontanka River Embankment). His works were published from 1815; he was a member of Free Society of Friends of Russian Literature (1820). In September 1820 he left St. Petersburg to return in April 1825; stayed with his brother M.K. Kuchelbecker's in the barracks of the Crew Guards on Ekaterininsky Avenue (today 22 Rimskogo-Korsakova Avenue), then lived at N.I. Grech's (15 Nevsky Avenue) and at the house of Duke A.I. Odoevsky (7 St.Isaac's Square). At the end of November to the beginning of December 1825 he was introduced by K.F. Ryleev into the Northern Society. Took an active part in the insurrection of 14 December 1825 on Senate Square, after its suppression escaped from St. Petersburg, was arrested on 19 January 1826 in the outskirts of Warsaw, conveyed to St. Petersburg, and imprisoned in the Secret House of Alexeevsky Ravelin. The Supreme Criminal Court sentenced him to death; following the confirmation of 10 July 1826 the death sentence was commuted for 20 years of penal servitude. Until 1835 he was imprisoned in Keksgolm Fortress, Shlisselburg Fortress, Dinaburg Fortress and Sveaborg Fortress, and then exiled to Siberia. Works by Kuchelbecker encompass odes, epistles, tragedies and the romantic drama Izhora (published in 1835), poems, the novel The Last Kolonna (1832-43), literary critiques, The Diary (written in prison, published in 1929).

References: Шубин В. Ф. Поэты пушкинского Петербурга. Л., 1985. С. 14-32; Петербург декабристов. СПб., 2000 (ук.).

A. D. Margolis. Grech Nikolay Ivanovich
Kuchelbecker Mikhail Karlovich
Kuchelbecker Wilhelm Karlovich
Odoevsky Alexander Ivanovich
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Ryleev Kondraty Fedorovich
Dekabristov Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 164
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city, house 15
Rimsky-Korsakov Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 22
St.Isaac's Square/Saint Petersburg, city, house 7
Шубин В. Ф. Поэты пушкинского Петербурга. Л., 1985
Петербург декабристов / Сост. А.Д.Марголис. СПб., 2000 Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, Literary and Social Organization
Decembrists
Alexeevsky Ravelin