Krylov: The Fabulist Who Knew Hunger as a Child

At his funeral, every mourner received a book of his fables, as he had wished. The man his contemporaries mocked for his slowness and his appetite had, at the age of four, been on a list of those sentenced to hang. That man was Ivan Krylov, whose fables every Russian knows by heart. He knew hunger in a besieged city, loved in silence, worked for some thirty years at the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg, and learned ancient Greek late in life. In this episode we meet Krylov, and the hidden human sides of his life and work. • Krylov: The Fabulist Who Knew Hunger as a Child • The Gazelle and the Dervish: A Russian Fable With the Spirit of Kalila and Dimna • From Siege to the Library: The Hidden Face of Ivan Krylov