Ukrainian philosopher, poet, Cossack of the Kharkiv Regiment. The author of the song "The Cossack rode across the Danube". He was born at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. He died in the village of Pryputni, Yelysavetgrad District, Kherson Province (near the modern village of Moshoryne, in the Znamyan district of the Kirovohrad Region) at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The exact date of birth and death is unknown.
Authorship of the song
The author of the famous song "The Cossack went across the Danube" was considered a legendary figure for a long time. The Russian historian Mykola Karamzin was the first to confirm the authorship of this song. He was also introduced to Semyon Klimovsky's other works "On the Truth and Generosity of Benefactors" and "On the Justice of Chiefs".
Karamzin wrote about him:
In the imperial library is kept his handwritten composition "On Generosity and Truth", which contains many good feelings and even good verses... They say that Klimovsky was as famous and respected among his fellow Cossacks as no less than seven Greek sages; that he, like an inspired Pythia, spoke in high-pitched verses in conversations, gave wise advice to his friends, often repeated the proverb: "Good to us and evil to no one, that is lawful life"; and the curious came from afar to listen to him.
The poet's popularity increased after he became the hero of the Russian writer Alexander Shakhovsky's vaudeville opera "Cossack Poet" (1812).
In 1905, the historian Vsevolod Sreznevsky was lucky enough to find in the personal library of Peter I and publish two manuscripts signed by the "unworthy slave Kharkov Cossack Semyon Klymov", making them the property of everyone interested. The language of Semen Klimovsky's works is close to the language of Skovoroda's works — Russian with numerous Church Slavonic and Ukrainianisms. Some works are written entirely in colloquial Ukrainian. And already in our time, the researcher of literary antiquity Valery Shevchuk translated the writings of the poet of the 18th century. in the modern Ukrainian language and placed it in one of the volumes of "Anthologies of Ukrainian Poetry".
Poetic treatises
The works "On the truth and generosity of benefactors" and "On the justice of chiefs" are extremely interesting from many points of view. "The tsar without truth is dead," S. Klimovsky wrote. And then he painted a picture of the moral decline to which society is doomed by a ruler who "falls... into the abyss of evil." Darkness, lies, rage, "moral diseases" - this is the price of contempt for the truth. A "non-lover of the truth" is not worthy of being a king, Klimovsky insists, because he becomes "dead-handed" during his lifetime... The author moralizes, promising that grace will pour from heaven only to those who "take up the work of truth." And this is not a cold learned moralizing, but a passionate incantation, a demonstration of a moral dilemma calculated for a "pedagogical" effect: "It is better to endure hunger with truth and cold in the poor, than to have no truth when I was a king."
It was August 1724 - this is the date indicated at the end of the manuscript. Researchers of S. Klimovskyi's work Hryhoriy Nudga and Valery Shevchuk paid attention to the political context in which the treatises of the "Kharkiv Cossack" addressed to Peter I appeared. The policy of revenge against Ukraine "for Mazepa" had dire consequences. The economy was looted, many people were exterminated, restrictions were imposed on Ukrainian book printing. In 1722, the hetmanship was abolished. From now on Ukraine was to be governed by the "Little Russian Collegium" headed by Brigadier Velyaminov. Pavlo Polubotok, who went to St. Petersburg to "pronounce" at least an iota of justice for the Ukrainians, did not return home - he died in the Petropavlovsk Fortress.
The manuscript (a handwritten book in which S. Klimovsky transcribed his works by hand) was found by V. Sreznevsky, who published it in 1905 in Kharkiv. The manuscript is kept in St. Petersburg in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
History of life
The life of S. Klimovsky is usually associated with the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where he supposedly studied (although there is no mention of Klymovsky in the encyclopedia "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Names"). M. Karamzin considered him a nugget, a "student of nature" who, unfortunately, "was not taught by art." Such a view is hardly justified, since the works of the poet that have come down to us testify to his good knowledge of languages, literature and philosophy. Among those who were spiritually closest to Klimovsky, Horace should be named first.
The question of what years the poet lived remains a mystery. It is only clear that his life was very long, maybe even more than a hundred years. In 1724, he was apparently quite a young man. Klimovsky ended his life at the end of the 18th century. in the steppes of the former Wild Field, where he and a friend founded the village of Priputna. It was here that the old poet was found by a certain Mykola Levitskyi, who in 1818 published his essay-memoir "The Village of Pryputny (Kherson province, Elisavetgr. uyezd)" on the pages of the Kharkiv magazine "Ukrainsky Vestnik". Hryhoriy Nudga found this essay and included it in his book "Cossack. Philosopher. Poet". However, his findings would be incomplete if it were not for Fedir Plotnir, who found in the archives the location of the now-disappeared village of Pryputni — next to New Prague (Olexandriy district of Kirovohrad region). On the Feast of the Intercession on October 14, 2003, a memorial sign was installed on the site of the Pryputni farm.
The village has been gone for a long time: the last inhabitants left here during the famine of 1932-1933. If you go from the regional center in the direction of Oleksandria, then turn the trail near the village of Vasine, then a few kilometers of the steppe road - and here is the deep gully, where once it first appeared with his friend Semyon Klymovskyi. A large pond glistens at the bottom of the stream, opposite which, on the hill near the Khomchy grove, surrounded by tall poplars stood Klimovsky's house, where Mykola Levytsky was a guest. He found the old Cossack with Horace and Virgil in his arms. Peasants in straw blocks were just returning from the field. The sun was setting. The host led the guest to the mountain - every evening he saw off the celestial body like this. Levytsky remembered the words that only that life has meaning, which can be said to be benevolent: the relations between Klimovsky and the peasants were imbued with benevolence: the picture painted by M. Levytsky is almost idyllic. Part of this idyll is the everyday advice of the wise "Mr." Klimovsky, as well as the songs he gives to the village youth. The essay also mentions the song "The Cossack went across the Danube".
Writings
"About the truth and generosity of benefactors"
"On the justice of superiors"
"About the strange deeds of the Emperor of All Russia (Peter I)"
"On the humility of the highest"
"On the arrival of the Swedish king Charles XII inside and on Mazepa's treason"
The song "The Cossack rode across the Danube"
