GLINKA, FEDOR NIKOLAEVICH (1788-1849); Russian poet and author, was born at Smolensk in 1788, and was specially educated for the army. In 1803 he obtained a commission as an officer, and two years later took part in the Austrian campaign. His tastes for literary pursuits, however, soon induced him to leave the service, whereupon he withdrew to his estates in the government of Smolensk, and subsequently devoted most of his time to study or travelling about Russia. Upon the invasion of the French in 1812, he re-entered the Russian army, and remained in active service until the end of the campaign in 1814. Upon the elevation of Count Milarodovich to the military governorship of St Petersburg, Glinka was appointed colonel under his command. On account of his suspected revolutionary tendencies he was, in 1826, banished to Petrozavodsk, but he nevertheless retained his honorary post of president of the Society of the Friends of Russian Literature, and was after a time allowed to return to St Petersburg. Soon afterwards he retired completely from public life, and died on his estates in 1849.
Glinka’s martial songs have special reference to the Russian military campaigns of his time. He is known also as the author of the descriptive poem Kareliya, &c. (Carelia, or the Captivity of Martha Joanovna) (1830), and of a metrical paraphrase of the book of Job. His fame as a military author is chiefly due to his Pisma Russkago Ofitsera (Letters of a Russian Officer) (8 vols., 1815-1816).
GLINKA, MICHAEL IVANOVICH (1803-1857), Russian musical composer, was born at Novospassky, a village in the Smolensk government, on the 2nd of June 1803. His early life he spent at home, but at the age of thirteen we find him at the Blagorodrey Pension, St Petersburg, where he studied music under Carl Maier and John Field, the Irish composer and pianist, who had settled in Russia. We are told that in his seventeenth year he had already begun to compose romances and other minor vocal pieces; but of these nothing now is known. His thorough musical training did not begin till the year 1830, when he went abroad and stayed for three years in Italy, to study the works of old and modern Italian masters. His thorough knowledge of the requirements of the voice may be connected with this course of study. His training as a composer was finished under the contrapuntist Dehn, with whom Glinka stayed for several months at Berlin. In 1833 he returned to Russia, and devoted himself to operatic composition. On the 27th of September (9th of October) 1836, took place the first representation of his opera Life for the Tsar (the libretto by Baron de Rosen). This was the turning-point in Glinka’s life,—for the work was not only a great success, but in a manner became the origin and basis of a Russian school of national music. The story is taken from the invasion of Russia by the Poles early in the 17th century, and the hero is a peasant who sacrifices his life for the tsar. Glinka has wedded this patriotic theme to inspiring music. His melodies, moreover, show distinct affinity to the popular songs of the Russians, so that the term “national” may justly be applied to them. His appointment as imperial chapelmaster and conductor of the opera of St Petersburg was the reward of his dramatic successes. His second opera Russlan and Lyudmila, founded on Pushkin’s poem, did not appear till 1842; it was an advance upon Life for the Tsar in its musical aspect, but made no impression upon the public. In the meantime Glinka wrote an overture and four entre-actes to Kukolnik’s drama Prince Kholmsky. In 1844 he went to Paris, and his Jota Arragonesa (1847), and the symphonic work on Spanish themes, Une Nuit à Madrid, reflect the musical results of two years’ sojourn in Spain. On his return to St Petersburg he wrote and arranged several pieces for the orchestra, amongst which the so-called Kamarinskaya achieved popularity beyond the limits of Russia. He also composed numerous songs and romances. In 1857 he went abroad for the third time; he now wrote his autobiography, orchestrated Weber’s Invitation à la valse, and began to consider a plan for a musical version of Gogol’s Tarass-Boulba. Abandoning the idea and becoming absorbed in a passion for ecclesiastical music he went to Berlin to study the ancient church modes. Here he died suddenly on the 2nd of February 1857.
GLINKA, SERGY NIKOLAEVICH (1774-1847), Russian author, the elder brother of Fedor N. Glinka, was born at Smolensk in 1774. In 1796 he entered the Russian army, but after three years’ service retired with the rank of major. He afterwards employed himself in the education of youth and in literary pursuits, first in the Ukraine, and subsequently at Moscow, where he died in 1847. His poems are spirited and patriotic; he wrote also several dramatic pieces, and translated Young’s Night Thoughts.
Among his numerous prose works the most important from an historical point of view are: Russkoe Chtenie (Russian Reading: Historical Memorials of Russia in the 18th and 19th Centuries) (2 vols., 1845); Istoriya Rossii, &c. (History of Russia for the use of Youth) (10 vols., 1817-1819, 2nd ed. 1822, 3rd ed. 1824); Istoriya Armyan, &c. (History of the Migration of the Armenians of Azerbijan from Turkey to Russia) (1831); and his contributions to the Russky Vyestnik (Russian Messenger), a monthly periodical, edited by him from 1808 to 1820.
GLOBE-FISH, or Sea-Hedgehog, the names by which some sea-fishes are known, which have the remarkable faculty of inflating their stomachs with air. They belong to the families Diodontidae and Tetrodontidae. Their jaws resemble the sharp beak of a parrot, the bones and teeth being coalesced into one mass with a sharp edge. In the Diodonts there is no mesial division of the jaws, whilst in the Tetrodonts such a division exists, so that they appear to have two teeth above and two below. By means of these jaws they are able to break off branches of corals, and to masticate other hard substances on which they feed. Usually they are of a short, thick, cylindrical shape, with powerful fins (fig. 1). Their body is covered with thick skin, without scales, but provided with variously formed spines, the size and extent of which vary in the different species. When they inflate their capacious stomachs with air, they assume a globular form, and the spines protrude, forming a more or less formidable defensive armour (fig. 2). A fish thus blown out turns over and floats belly upwards, driving before the wind and waves. Many of these fishes are highly poisonous when eaten, and fatal accidents have occurred from this cause. It appears that they acquire poisonous qualities from their food, which frequently consists of decomposing or poisonous animal matter, such as would impart, and often does impart, similar deleterious qualities to other fish. They are most numerous between the tropics and in the seas contiguous to them, but a few species live in large rivers, as, for instance, the Tetrodon fahaka, a fish well known to all travellers on the Nile. Nearly 100 different species are known.
| Fig. 1.—Diodon maculatus. |