Serge Poltoratzky

Serge Poltoratzky (alternate spellings: Sergei or Sergey and Poltoratsky, Poltoratskii or Poltoratskiy), 1803-1884, was a Russian literary scholar, bibliophile and humanitarian. His major literary work was the Dictionary of Russian Authors, which he worked on for decades. He travelled extensively in Europe to find books and manuscripts needed for this work. He was also interested in the letters of Voltaire and in Franco-Russian cultural relations. He wrote articles for the French press on these and other literary topics, often under the pseudonym R.E. According to Yuri Druzhnikov, Poltoratzky was the first to introduce Pushkin's work to a western European audience, in the October 1821 issue of Revue encyclopedique (published in Paris).

Among Poltoratzky’s literary friends were Victor Hugo, Nikolay Karamzin, Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, Alexander Pushkin, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve and Vasiliy Zhukovsky. He was also known for giving financial help to impoverished authors and scholars.

Poltoratzky’s personal library, which included many rare books and unpublished manuscripts, was donated to the Imperial Public Library, now the Russian State Library.

Serge Poltoratzky was the only son of Dimitry Poltoratzky and Anna Khlebnikova, who also had five daughters. Serge was primarily educated by tutors at the family home, Avchurino, on the east bank of the Oka River in Kaluga Province (Kaluzhskaya Oblast), but he also spent a year at the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa. His parents were deeply interested in improving the material and social conditions of Russian serfs and peasants, and Serge inherited their commitment. In 1812 the family hid in Avchurino’s attics as Napoleon’s army looted the estate during their retreat from Moscow.

Serge came into his inheritance at the age of 15, when his father died in 1818. At this time Serge was serving at court as a page to the Tsarina Elizaveta, wife of Tsar Alexander I. He later served in the Preobrazhensky Life Guards, according to his father’s and uncles’ wishes, but military life was not to his liking, and he soon resigned his commission, having reached only the lowly rank of praporshchik (often translated as “ensign”). Thereafter he devoted himself primarily to literary pursuits. Druzhnikov relates that after Poltoratzky's 1921 article, which mentioned Pushkin's poems Liberty and The Village and their criticism of Russian social conditions, appeared in France, he "was fired from his job and sent to live in the country under police supervision". This job may have been the Life Guards position, and the episode glossed for his children as a voluntary resignation.

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