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A Writer from Istanbul Who
Served Three Tsars
accepted Emin’s application requested from Obreskov to verify Emin’s story and provide
information about him. In his response, Obreskov said that he had the letter that Emin wrote
to his mother, he thought of giving the letter to Emin’s relatives, but he gave up thinking that
they might have wondered where Emin lived or what he was doing in Russia. Emphasizing
that he did not know what kind of person Emin was, Obreskov warned Russian authorities to
keep Emin away from any place related to Turkey, even from the borders and prevent his
correspondences with Turkey if they accept Emin in state service (Beshenkovski, 1974, p.
193).
Until he was employed by the Russian state, Emin lived by random jobs and the fifty roubles
given to the foreigners. As a result of the information provided by Obreskov, Emin started to
work as a teacher in the Military School. Although later he started to work as a translator in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the higher authorities prevented him to be promoted higher
than lieutenant rank (Beshenkovski, 1974). From the documents
found by Arzumanova, it was
understood that financial problems of Emin never ended. Emin submitted a petition to the
Tsar Petro II in 1762 to request that his salary was increased. In the petition, he was
complaining that he only had one hundred fifty roubles despite the fact that he translated in
Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Polish and Russian; that many foreigners kept the
ranks that they had in their countries although they started to live in Russia recently and a
Ukrainian student who could speak only four languages had three hundred roubles and he
requested that his salary was increased to four hundred roubles. Emin also stated that he had
left his colonel rank in Ottoman Turkey and came to Russia and converted to Orthodoxy by
putting his life at risk to convince the Tsar. He also added that he could accepted to be
positioned in another stated post if he did not get a salary to live in prosperity in this position.
Upon his petition, Count Vorontsov instructed that Emin’s salary was increased to three
hundred roubles and he was employed in the public diplomacy department of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Thus, Emin was subjected to a language examination by Russian authorities,
because the Russians wanted to be sure that this weird man from Istanbul really knew these
languages.
After being called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, various articles were given to Emin to
translate from Russian to Italian, Portuguese, Polish and Latin as well as from these
languages, especially Italian to Russian. Turkish translation was rejected by Emin claiming
that he could only speak that language. However, Public Diplomacy department would
neglect Count Vorontsov’s instruction and not employ Emin despite his success in the
examination claiming that his resume, he was a foreigner and there were already other
translators in the department. Emin’s application resulted in continuing to work as an Italian
teacher at the Military School and Fine Arts Academy which were affiliated to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and having another one hundred roubles per year in addition to the one
hundred fifty roubles he had (Beshenkovski, 1974, p. 183-184). While Emin was working as a
teacher between 1762 and 1764, he wrote an Italian grammar book in French and a Russian
grammar book in Italian as well as a French-Italian dictionary. These efforts provided him a
fifty-rouble increase in his salary (Beshenkovski, 1974, p.194).
All these would not solve Emin’s financial problems. Saying “
Merchants are the soul of the
state and ornament and interest of the city” (Blagoy, 1974, p. 370), Emin would seek the
solution in this class which was born in the time of Pyotr I in Russia. While Beshenkovski
depicted Emin as an
extraordinary figure in terms of borrowing money in his article, he also
122
Zeynep Gunal
provided a long list of people to whom Emin was in debt in 1763-1765. This is a long list of
eleven people most of whom were merchants. Emin owed approximately nine hundred twenty
seven roubles to these people in 1763-1764 (Beshenkovski, 1974). He explained his situation
in
The Adventures of Femistokl as follows: “
My salary increased my hunger, let alone
satisfying it; without knowing where to find a bite, I started to research on writing”
(Beshenkovski, 1974).
Unlike his expectations, entering into the literary world brought a new burden on Emin rather
than providing financial gain; because he needed money to have his writings published that
time. Selling the published works below expected price created another debt in addition to the
current debt to the publisher. In his letter to Yekaterina II in 1764, he requested one thousand
roubles to be returned in four years, in order to be able to publish his writings as well as
paying his remaining debts. Yekaterina II approved this request in 27 November 1764 saying:
“
Emin will be provided with one thousand roubles to be returned within four years and I will
also be notified about each translation that he promised in order that he was paid bonus”
(Arzumanova, 1961: 185). Emin’s ability in trade and above all his fame as a writer in Russia
were so impressive that a merchant Kopnin of St. Petersburg purchased the publishing rights
of his works to be written for eight thousand roubles from the writer. However, Emin could
not keep his promise, because he died on 16 April 1770 at the age of thirty five due to an
unknown disease (Beshenkovski, 1974, p. 195).
5. Conclusion
As it can be understood from his biography, it is true that literature was not a solution for
Emin to continue his existence in Russia easily. However, it is also a fact that Emin brought a
new impulse to the 18
th
century Russian literature in the field of prose. Emin was able to see
that the non-noble part of the Russian nation represented the majority and the dominant
literary perception of the period was distant to this majority. Thus, the novel genre, which
addressed to this large population, in which adventure and love were intertwined and he
included his experience in the plot on the background of exotic countries that the readers
might never go to, which lacked decency (Alpatova T.A., 2012, p.86) but which was
enjoyable for the ordinary Russian to read, has emerged. Emin of Istanbul was one of the first
men of letters who laid the foundations of novel genre in Russia without knowing with this
prose genre which was underestimated by the authoritarian poets of the period.
6. References
Alpatova, T.A. (2012).
Problema transformatsii individualnoy biografii v hudozhestvennoe
povestvovanie (Roman F.A.Emina
Nepostayannaya fortuna ili pohozhdenie Miramonda)
(Problems of The Transformation of Self Biography into The Artistic Expression, ‘Emin’s
Novel
Unfaithful Fortune or Adventure of Miramond). Retrieved at September 01, 2015, from
Elektronn y jurnal “Vestnik Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Oblastnogo Universiteta”. 3:
83-89. http://evestnik-mgou.ru/Articles/Doc/216
Arzumanova, M. (1961). Novoe o F. Emine [The New Information About F.Emin].
Leningrad:
Russkaya Literatura, 1. İzd. Akademiya Nauk SSSR. p. 182-186.
Beshenkovski, Ye.B. (1974).
Zhizn Fyodora Emina [The Life of Emin]. Leningrad: XVIII
vek. Sbornik 9. İzd. “Nauka” Leningradskoe otdelenie.p.186-203.