Ivan Barkov

Biography

Ivan Barkov was born in 1732 in the family of an Orthodox priest. In 1744 he entered an Orthodox Seminary where he spent 5 years. In 1748 at Lomonosov's recommendation he was admitted to the Academic Gymnasium. Language and poetry were his fields of study. He was an uneven student, and he repeatedly was subjected to corporal punishment (whippings) for drunkenness, insolence, and slander against the rector. In 1751 he was demoted to a typesetter at the academy's printing workshop, and in 1753 he was promoted to the position of a scribe in the academy's administrative office.

In 1755-56 he was Lomonosov's personal secretary, and in this period he wrote "A Brief History of Russia", which was published in 1762. In 1759-60 he edited the medieval "Nestor's Chronicle" for publication. In 1756 he was dismissed from the academy for drunkenness and insubordination, after several reprieves, and reinstated until final dismissal in 1766.

Barkov translated Horace's Odes into Russian in 1763, Phaedr's Fables in 1764, and Ludovico Lazzaroni's "Il Mondo degli Eroi" in 1763.

He died in 1768. There were widespread rumors that he died either in a suicide, with the autoepitaph Жил грешно и умер смешно (lived sinfully and died ridiculously) "on a piece of paper inserted into his anus", or in an outhouse drowning.