His childhood was spent in Greschenewo
where the family had inherited an estate. He was sent to the government
school or gymnasium, only until the fifth class. At sixteen he went to
Petersburg to pursue a military career by the will of his father. His
desire for knowledge drove him toward the University, but his father
refused his every request, and during his student years he went hungry
very often. He wrote vaudevilles for the Alexander theatre under an
assumed name, and not until 1840 published his first volume of verse. In
his fortieth year he brought out an anthology of Russian poets that was
sufficiently successful to give him a living. In his fiftieth year his
health seemed failing, and he went abroad to Italy, where the disaster
seemed happily averted. The journal with which he had been connected
being now suppressed, he became connected with another for two years. In
December, 1877, he died, widely mourned and called "the singer of
Russian folk song."
IVAN SSAWITSCH NIKITIN was born October 3, 1824, at Woronesh. Though his
life was poor in external circumstances, it was all the richer within.
His best biography is his own work, "From the Diary of a Seminarist."
His life opened under rather auspicious influences, for his father owned
a candle factory and was so prosperous that his business amounted yearly
to a hundred thousand roubles.
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