Vasily Arkadyevich Timiryazev (18 March 1841, Saint Petersburg — 27 August 1912, Mustamäki) was a Russian literary figure, journalist, theatre critic, and polyglot translator. He translated works of Charles Dickens (The Mystery of Edwin Drood and others), Walter Scott (The Heart of Midlothian and others), William Makepeace Thackeray (The Book of Snobs and others), Bret Harte (Gabriel Conroy and others), Émile Zola (The Fortune of the Rougons and others), George Sand (Valentine), Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, John Stuart Mill, among others.
He was a brother of Kliment, Nikolai, and Dmitry Timiryazev, and was particularly close to his younger brother Kliment Arkadyevich. In their youth, they were united by studies at the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, participation in the 1861 student unrest, rejection of Russia's autocratic system, as well as translation activities, interest in English literature, and work for the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski.
He was an honorary justice of the peace in Saint Petersburg, a member of the Mutual Aid Society of Russian Writers, a contributor to the journals Otechestvennye Zapiski and Delo, where he published translations of new European literature and compilations from the works of the most prominent representatives of European social thought. A 1860s liberal by conviction, his talent as a journalist and translator was appreciated by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Later, he shared the principles of parliamentarism and became a regular contributor to the journal Istorichesky Vestnik, where he maintained regular columns such as Foreign Historical News and Trifles, Foreigners about Russia, and Russians about Foreigners. In addition to the mentioned publications, he appeared in numerous other Saint Petersburg newspapers and journals, but his name remained unknown to the wider public, overshadowed by the fame of his renowned scientist brother. He rarely signed his articles with his full name, or not at all, or only with initials.
Timiryazev was the biographer of the baronial de Bode family. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), he served as a war correspondent in the Balkans. A youthful friend of N. S. Leskov. The name V. A. Timiryazev is mentioned in Leskov's story (1894). In the 1890s, the editorial board of the journal Vestnik Inostrannoy Literatury published his translations of English and French classics in the series "Collected Works of Selected Foreign Writers". Some of his literary translations were published in the USSR and continue to be reprinted to the present day.
Early life and education
Vasily Timiryazev was born 6 March 1841 in Saint Petersburg to the head of the Saint Petersburg customs district, Arkady Semyonovich Timiryazev, and his second wife (married 9 November 1830) Adelaida Klementyevna, née Baroness de Bode, daughter of a lieutenant colonel. The noble Timiryazev family was known from pre-Petrine times. Besides Vasily, the family included older daughters Maria and Olga, and brothers Alexander and Ivan — from the father's first marriage to Maria Vasilyevna Protasova. From the second marriage to Adelaida Klementyevna were born Zakhary (born 4 September 1831), Nikolai (born 3 August 1835), Dmitry (born 8 June 1837), Vasily, and Kliment (born 22 May 1843).Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg (TsGIA SPb), fond 19, opis 111, 124. «Метрические книги церкви Св. Александра Невского при Правительствующем сенате» [Parish registers of the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky at the Governing Senate].Additionally, Vasily was a first cousin to the Saratov governor F. I. Timiryazev and nephew to the Astrakhan governor I. S. Timiryazev. His nephews were the physicist A. K. Timiryazev and the Minister of Trade and Industry V. I. Timiryazev. The Timiryazev family was noble but impoverished, as with the accession of the new sovereign Alexander II in 1855, Vasily's father was retired, and his large family had to live on a modest pension. At the same time, Arkady Semyonovich adhered to firm republican principles and raised his children in the same spirit. The younger children received home education and early became accustomed to earning their living through their own labor. However, in preparation for university entrance exams, in addition to their mother, the brothers were assisted by their home tutor Ovchinnikov. On 19 July 1860, Vasily and Kliment submitted petitions for admission to examinations at Saint Petersburg University. Studies at Saint Petersburg University
Following their father's wish, both brothers enrolled on 15 September in the Faculty of Law in the cameral sciences division.In some biographies of the Timiryazev brothers and in older encyclopedias, the date of their entry into Saint Petersburg University is given as 1861, but B. E. Raikov established that both brothers entered a year earlier. Vasily was 19 and Kliment 17 at the time of entry. Kliment transferred to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in his first year, studying natural sciences until graduation. In autumn 1861, in their second year, Vasily and Kliment were expelled for participation in student unrest, because of a directive from the new Minister of Public Education E. V. Putiatin, requiring all students to sign matriculation books of a new format containing disciplinary rules: not to participate in university public life, not to organize meetings, a library, or fund, not to attend lectures of other faculties, etc. By signing, a student undertook to follow the new strict rules, contrary to the unwritten laws of student freedom.
Some students were forced to sign, but Vasily and Kliment chose the path of "non-matriculated" students — those who refused to sign the document. On this occasion, a police officer visited the apartment of the rebellious young men, "first with flattery, then with threats urging them to return to the university, but in vain". 320 students of Saint Petersburg University refused to sign, and were arrested from 12 October to 6 December 1861. But since Vasily and Kliment's parents lived in Saint Petersburg with their sons, the police authorities required their father Arkady Semyonovich to provide surety for them, which he did. The matter ended there, and the Timiryazev brothers avoided arrest in the Kronstadt Naval Hospital, unlike other protesters.
Vasily continued his studies as an auditor only two years later, in spring 1864 (Kliment, who also refused regular student status, resumed studies six months earlier), and completed them around 1866. After his father's death in 1867, Vasily lived with his mother in Saint Petersburg, in the parental home at Sergiyevskaya Street, house 5.
Vocation choice
V. A. Timiryazev initially planned to become a professional literary figure and devote his life to journalism, but later postponed this decision. For the rest of his life until retirement, Vasily Arkadyevich served as a Saint Petersburg justice of the peace; according to a contemporary, "Timiryazev, honorary justice of the peace—one of the oldest and most righteous in Saint Petersburg. Stern, passionate, and wayward, but 'mute before the law', with which he is armed from head to toe". However, official service could not fulfill all his aspirations. He shared a typical 1860s liberal-mindset, adherent of ideas promoted by the journal Sovremennik and its radical authors, sharing revolutionary views on Russian society in the 1860s. It was no coincidence that he linked his fate with the most freethinking journals of the time—Otechestvennye Zapiski and Delo, where he published literary translations from European languages and articles on literature, history, and public life. He was particularly close to the interests of Otechestvennye Zapiski, edited at the time by N. A. Nekrasov.
V. A. Timiryazev's translations from English, German, French, Norwegian, and Danish are well-known. His younger brother Kliment also earned money translating from English. His articles on Garibaldi and Darwin appeared in Otechestvennye Zapiski in the first half of the 1860s, before Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin joined the editorial board, when the brothers used to be students. Their mother Adelaida Klementyevna taught them languages. Researcher I. M. Katarsky suggested that the brothers may have translated Charles Dickens's Great Expectations together.
According to V. Ya. Fet, the Timiryazev family, thanks to Adelaida Klementyevna having a more Protestant than Orthodox lifestyle, may have maintained close ties with Britons living in Saint Petersburg. Thus, writer and Anglican priest Lewis Carroll in March 1871 asked Alexander MacMillan, owner of the London publishing house Macmillan Publishers, to send French and German translations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to the priest of the Anglican church in Saint Petersburg, G. S. Thompson. Carroll intended the books for a certain "Miss Timiryazef": .
The reason of why an English translator needed French and German versions of Alice, and whether Macmillan's editions reached Saint Petersburg, remains unclear. The only Russian translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland published during Lewis Carroll's lifetime appeared in Moscow in 1879 (A. I. Mamontov printing house, 166 pp.). Titled Sonya in the Kingdom of Wonder, all fairy tale characters had Russian names, and the text was shorter than the original. The anonymous translation is attributed either to Olga Ivanovna Timiryazeva, Vasily Arkadyevich's cousin, or, more likely, to Ekaterina Ivanovna Timiryazeva (1848—1921). Ekaterina was Vasily's niece — sister of the future Minister of Trade V. I. Timiryazev; from age ten she lived in their home and learned English from grandmother Adelaida Klementyevna. In 1871, she married L. A. Baratynsky and later became known as translator of children's literature E. I. Baratynskaya, collaborating with the Tolstoyan publishing house Posrednik of I. I. Gorbunov-Posadov.
Work in Otechestvennye Zapiski
The earliest mention of V. A. Timiryazev's name in the honorarium records of Otechestvennye Zapiski dates to 1871. The young contributor received payment for his translation from English of the anonymous "politico-satirical story" Ginx's Baby: His Birth and Other Misfortunes. The actual author was the English writer Edward Jenkins, whom V. A. Timiryazev translated in subsequent years, though in 1871 the author's name was still unknown to him. In the preface to the story —actually a novel— V. A. Timiryazev noted that in just a few months Ginx's Baby had been reprinted seven times in Great Britain and enjoyed great success among readers. "Critics recognized it as the best political satire in English since Swift, but vainly tried to guess the author's name, which he has kept secret to this day, though all journalists agree it is one of the known political and economic writers..." Two years later, N. P. Ogarev in Geneva read the Otechestvennye Zapiski translation and in a letter to A. A. Hertzen, son of the late A. I. Hertzen, praised both the novel and the translation: "Have you read the English novel Djinks Child (1871). I have it in Russian translation. It's delightful. Get the original. The author's name is not given".