Barkov I.S. (1732-1768), poet

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Personalia
BARKOV Ivan Semenovich (1732, St. Petersburg [?] - 1768) poet, historian, translator. He studied at the Alexander Nevsky Theological Seminary from 1744; in 1748 he was accepted into the Academic Institute, he was expelled in 1751 for unbecoming behavior. From 1753, he was a copyist of the Academic Office, a staff copyist for M. V. Lomonosov, I. K. Taubert and K. G. Razumovsky by whose order he was appointed a translator from Latin (1762, he was dismissed from the Academy of Sciences in 1766). In 1762, he published the first ever Russian work by A. D. Kantemir with a supplement including his biography. In 1763, he published his own translation of satires by Horace; in 1764, he published a translation of fables by Phaedrus. He is the author of the Brief Russian History (from Ryurik to Peter the Great, it was published in 1762). He prepared the text of Radzivillovskaya chronicle for the publication. From the 18th century, Barkov has been ascribed the authorship of manuscript poetic collections Girl's Toy (or Composition by Barkov; first published in 1992) of pornographic character which influenced the Russian erotic poetry (V. L. Pushkin and Alexander Pushkin, A. I. Polezhaev et al.) where only separate compositions belong to Barkov. The life of Barkov was surrounded with legends, including that about his suicide.

References: Кулябко Е.С. Замечательные питомцы Академического университета. Л., 1977. С. 28-40; Зорин А. Л. Барков и барковиана // Лит. обозрение. 1991. №11. С. 18-21.

V. A. Kuznetsov, D. N. Cherdakov. Barkov Ivan Semenovich
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Kantemir Antiokh Dmitrievich
Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilievich
Peter I, Emperor
Phaedrus
Polezhaev Alexander Ivanovich
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Pushkin Vasily Lvovich
Razumovsky Kirill Grigorievich, Count
Taubert Johann Caspar
Кулябко Е. С. Замечательные питомцы Академического университета. Л., 1977
Зорин А. Л. Барков и барковиана: Предварит. замечания // Лит. обозрение, 1991