Sergei Aksakov (1791–1859)

Sergei Aksakov was a 19th-century Russian literary figure remembered for his semi-autobiographical tales of family life, as well as his books on hunting and fishing. Born in Ufa, Russia in 1791, he was educated at the Kazan Gymnasium and then, in 1805 (in the first year after its founding), at Kazan University. Aksakov worked briefly in government service, from 1807 through 1811, before resigning and moving from St. Petersburg to Moscow. He volunteered for the militia and took part in the Campaign of 1812, before retiring to his family estate. In 1826 he moved to Moscow again, and worked for the Moscow Censorship Committee (1827-1832), before becoming an inspector at the Grand Duke Constantine School of Surveying in 1833, and the first director of the Constantine Geodetic Institute in 1835. He retired from the civil service in 1838.

Aksakov began publishing translations, reviews, and articles in the early 1820s. In 1832 he met Gogol, and became a devoted follower of the writer, whom he deemed a "a purely Russian genius." Gogol encouraged Aksakov in writing A Family Chronicle, which he began in 1840 and published in the late 1850s. In between he wrote and published the popular Notes on Fishing (1847) and Notes of a Hunter in Orenburg Province (1852). Gogol wrote Aksakov, in relation to these works, that "Your birds and fishes are more alive than my men and women." A member of the Slavophile movement, Aksakov hosted such authors as Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy at his home in Abramtsevo. His sons, Konstantin and Ivan, were also notable members of the Slavophile movement, and his daughter, Vera Aksakova, was a well-known author. Aksakov died in 1859.