Denis Davydov

Denis Vasilyevich Davydov (1784–1839) was a cavalry officer, a leader of partisan raids against Napoleon’s army in 1812, and the poet of the “hussar” style of lively, convivial verse. Bowring prints a single short poem under the name “Davidov”; the archive’s editor identifies him with Denis Davydov, but Bowring himself gives no notice of the author.

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.