6 - Konstantin Dmitriyevich Kavelin (1818–1885)

Summary

Kavelin's life, character and work

Konstantin Dmitriyevich Kavelin was born in 1818 into a family which owned landed property and serfs in the province of Ryazan. His father was Russian but his mother was Scottish, the orphaned daughter of one John Baillie, who had worked as an architect at the court of the Emperor Paul. His early education was haphazard, like Granovsky's: he was taught at home by a succession of more or less inadequate tutors, among them the young Belinsky, who for a short time in 1835 was employed to prepare Kavelin for examinations in Russian literature. (The critic was a source of inspiration to his impressionable adolescent pupil, but hardly competent as a teacher.) From 1835 to 1839 Kavelin studied in the law faculty of Moscow University and for a further three years remained in the city, living with his parents and continuing his studies privately. Here he began to mix with prominent members of the Westernist intelligentsia, such as Granovsky (who had a great influence on him) and the university professors, Redkin and Kryukov. He also met Chaadayev. At the same time he frequented Yelagina's salon, at which he came into contact with leading Slavophiles. In 1842 he moved to St Petersburg in order to serve in the Ministry of Justice. Here in the northern capital he resumed his acquaintance with Belinsky and grew close to Botkin, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Panayev and other prominent men of letters.