Ippolit Bogdanovich

Ippolit Fyodorovich Bogdanovich (1743–1803), of Ukrainian origin, served as a state official and wrote light, graceful verse. His best-known work is Dushenka (1783), a free adaptation of La Fontaine’s tale of Psyche, which earned him Bowring’s title of “the Russian Anacreon”.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.