La première édition française des fables d’Ivan Krylov

Résumé 0

In 1825 in Paris, Count Grigori V Orlov published a two-volume collection of the Fables of Ivan Krylov, in Russian, French and Italian. This edition was a first serious attempt to bring to western Europe a work of Russian contemporary literature, of which Krylov was thought to be the most characteristic representative. Count Orlov, a member of a notable family, and in possession of considerable wealth, developed an active sponsorship policy. He was not satisfied with simply publishing the text : he organised a complete literary programme to bring the fables to public notice. First of all he made French and Italian prose translations. In Italy, Orlov read them aloud to poets, whom he asked to interpret them in verse. In France he organised a kind of literary tournament by inviting poets and well known figures to produce versions in poetry of his prose translations of Krylov, the ‘Russian La Fontaine’. Orlov then had them published by Firmin Didot with a type face developed for the particular occasion. The work was ornamented with five engravings, the work of E. Eszterreich, J-B Isabey, C. Beyer and Cain. The publication of Krylov’s Fables resulted in the appearance of critical articles in Russia (by Alexander Pushkin) and in France (by Edme Héreau), and of a series of editions of the translations of Krylov’s fables into French, and in the development of French research into Russian literature.