Vladimir Sollogub

Count Vladimir Alexandrovich Sollogub (Russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Соллогу́б; German: Woldemar Graf Sollogub (Sollohub); August 20, 1813, St. Petersburg – June 17 (o.s. June 5), 1882, Bad Homburg) was a minor Russian writer, author of novelettes, essays, plays, and memoirs.

His paternal grandfather was a Polish aristocrat, and he grew up in the midst of St. Petersburg high society. He graduated from the University of Dorpat in 1834 and was attached to the Ministry of Internal Affairs the following year in Vienna. His literary career began in 1837 in the journal Sovremennik. In 1840 he married Sofya Mikhailovna Velgorskaya. In 1843 he visited Nice and met Gogol. From 1856 he was an Officer for Special Commissions in the imperial court; he took an interest in prison reform, and from 1875 was сhair of the Commission for the Reorganization of Prisons in Russia. In 1858 he was sent abroad to study European theater, and in 1877 he became an official historian at court.

Sollogub was a connoisseur of theatrical life and of St. Petersburg society. He hosted a well-known literary and musical salon where he brought to life the atmosphere of St. Petersburg of that era as related in his Memoirs (1887). He is best known for his 1845 novelette Tarantas ("The Tarantass"), "a satirical journey from Moscow to Kazán in a tumble-down traveling cart. The satire, superficial and uninspired, is directed against the ideas of the Slavophils and the unpractical dreaminess of the romantic idealists."

Sollogub's origins were of the highest nobility, close to the court thanks to his grandmother Natalia L. Naryshkina (1761-1819). His grandfather, Yan Sollogub, served as an adjutant of the Polish king and was a prominent magnate in Lithuania. He increased his wealth to 80,000 souls by means of the marriage with Natalia Naryshkina, a daughter of the Russian Emperor's relative Lev Narishkin. Alexander Sollogub (1787–1843), the father of the writer and the son of Yan Sollogub, quickly wasted his share of the bequest. He held a civil rank of master of ceremonies (Russian: Церемониймейстер, from German "Zermonienmeister") at the court, however in public he was mainly known as a dandy. Pushkin mentioned his name ("Eternal Scollogub is having fun") in the drafts to the 1st chapter of "Eugene Onegin". Alexander's love for the theater, music, and painting had a valuable impact on his son, Vladimir.

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