“The art of living” in the letters of N.M. Karamzin and P.A. Vyazemsky in 1821

The article analyses the complex of moral and philosophical views that appear in the N.M. Karamzin’s letters addressed to P.A. Vyazemsky. They are regarded as “the art of living” which the author tried to pass onto his “pupil”in 1821, when the young “liberalist” fell into disgrace, and that just added to his deep “spleen”. A particular attention is paid to the literary-historical context of an uneasy dialogue between Karamzin and Vyazemsky. The absence of Vyazemsky’s letters addressed to his “teacher” Karamzin is partly compensated by the usage of the correspondence of Vyazemsky and Turgenev, as well as other epistolary materials. The author shows Karamzin’s interest for the saying “live and learn … to live”, reflected in the letters, together with the suggestions concerning its origins and the reason for the sender not mentioning Seneca’s name as the creator of the “proverb”. The comparison of “The Conversation 83 on Happiness” (1797), the essay “On the Happiest Time of Our Lives” (1803), and Karamzin’s letters to Vyazemsky in 1821 reveals that the views essential for Karamzin’s “art of living”. They are as follows: the relativity of a “possible happiness on earth”, its dependence mainly not on the external living conditions, but on the “skill to enjoy” what you possess. These ideas were first mentioned in the works at the turn of the centuries, and continued to be translated in 1821.