PHILOLOGIA CLASSICA VOL. 13. FASC. 1. 2018
https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu20.2018.113 165
© St. Petersburg State University, 2018
DE PHILOLOGIS
ET PHILOLOGIA
UDC 821.14
Friedrich Schiller and Gavriil Derzhavin in Greek:
Translations by Christian Friedrich Graefe (1780–1851)
Elena L. Ermolaeva
St. Petersburg State University,
7–9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation; e.ermolaeva@spbu.ru
For citation: Elena L. Ermolaeva. Friedrich Schiller and Gavriil Derzhavin in Greek: Translations by Chris-
tian Friedrich Graefe (1780–1851). Philologia Classica 2018, 13(1), 165–180. https://doi.org/ 10.21638/11701/
spbu20.2018.113
Friedrich Graefe, the irst Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of St Petersburg
(1819–1851), a full member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, teacher and friend of the
famous Russian classicist and reformer S. S. Uvarov, belonged to the irst generation of pupils
studying in Leipzig under Gottfried Hermann. Following Hermann, Graefe expressed himself
and wrote poetry in Latin and Ancient Greek. he list of his published Latin and Greek poetry
(Gelegenheits–Schriten) can be found in the Bulletin of the Imperial Academy of Sciences,
SPb. — Leipzig, 1852, 303–304. his article ofers the irst editions with a commentary of An-
cient Greek translations by Graefe of the prologue to Friedrich Schiller’s Bride of Messina (Die
Braut von Messina oder die feindlichen Brüder) and the poem Modesty, by the Russian poet
Gavriil Derzhavin (1743–1816). he article deals with the undated and probably unpublished
manuscript which seems to be a small Greek anthology of eleven poems in various metres:
iambic trimeter, dactylic hexameter, elegiac distich, Sapphic stanza, and the prose exhortation,
written in the hand of Graefe and stored in the Manuscript Department of the Russian Na-
tional Library in St Petersburg, among the papers of I. V. Pomyalovsky (1845–1906), a profes-
sor of classics at St Petersburg University. Graefe must have been encouraged to translate from
Schiller by Hermann (who himself translated four parts from Schiller’s Wallenstein trilogy) if
not directly, at least by the example of his own translations.
Keywords: Graefe, Schiller, Bride of Messina, Derzhavin, translations in Ancient Greek, G. Her-
mann.
10.21638/11701/spbu20.2018.113
In this article, I offer first editions and a commentary on translations by Christian
Friedrich Graefe of the prologue to Friedrich Schiller’s Bride of Messina (Die Braut von
Messina oder die feindlichen Brüder) and a poem by Gavriil Derzhavin Modesty into
Ancient Greek. The undated manuscript, comprising seven sheets of poetry, clearly and