Василий Петров и Григорий А. Потемкин. Об отношениях поэта и покровителя

Until recently, literary scholars paid very little attention to Vasilii Petrov, Catherine's II “pocket poet”, librarian and reader. For his contemporaries he was a poet of little merit, an adherent of obsolete poetics who owed his literary career exclusively to the empress's favour. One specific point of criticism was that Petrov addressed his panegyric works not only to Catherine II, but also to her dignitaries and to various noblemen. Among these dignitaries the most important was Catherine's lover, Prince Grigorii A. Potemkin, field marshal general of Russia. Potemkin remained Petrov's patron until Potemkin's death in 1791. The present paper analyses Petrov's odes and epistles in praise of Potemkin. What is the place of these works in the general framework of his poetic œuvre? How does Petrov use the actual facts of Potemkin's career in his panegyrics? Special attention is paid to the metapoetical passages of his poems and the light they shed on his poetic practice.