Wilhelm Kuchelbecker was Pushkin's friend from the Lycee — and his opposite in fate. Pushkin: fame and a duel. Kuchelbecker: hard labour and exile after the Decembrist uprising.
He was born in 1797 in St Petersburg, into a German family. The Lycee, then government service. He took part in the uprising of 14 December 1825 on Senate Square, was arrested and sentenced to death; the sentence was commuted to hard labour.
Ten years in fortresses, then exile to Siberia. There he wrote poems, plays, diaries. Pushkin helped him in secret: passing him money, trying to get him published.
He died in Tobolsk in 1846, blind. His diaries and poems long remained in manuscript. Now they stand in the academic editions.
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