I am certain that the name Daniil Maksimovich Ratgauz is well known to all admirers of early 20th-century romances—after all, his poems were used in the works of Vladislav Frantsevich Aloiz, Anton Stepanovich Arensky, Yuli Ivanovich Bleichman, Alexander Petrovich Vasilyev…
The list goes on: Reinhold Moritsevich Glier, Anton Antonovich Derfeldt, Erasmus Yakovlevich Dluskiy, Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov,
Arseny Nikolaevich Koreshchenko, César Antonovich Cui, Maximilian Karlovich Lippold, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Nikolaevich Sokolovsky, Viktor Antonovich Chechott.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky also held Ratgauz in high regard; Ratgauz had sent him his poems when he was 24 years old. The great composer not only expressed his gratitude to the author in letters but also set six of his poems to music (“We Sat Together by the Sleeping River,” “On This Moonlit Night,” “Alone Again, as Before,” “Amid Gloomy Days”). It was these very pieces that were included in Tchaikovsky’s famous Opus 73. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov also loved romances set to poems by David Ratgauz, and Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy repeatedly admitted in his interviews that, of all contemporary romance poets, he valued this one above all others.
Of course, there were also those who, to put it mildly, could not stand Daniil Maksimovich’s poetry.
For example, the well-known poet Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev wrote in his 1910 book *Letters on Russian Poetry*:
In villages, there are shopkeepers who can only write but not read. I think that’s Ratgauz as well. Because otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the courage to convey, in his tedious, illiterate poems, the thoughts and feelings of backward sixteen-year-old boys.
In his critical essays and reviews, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov comments on Ratgauz’s three-volume *Complete Collection of Poems* as follows:
Critics often accuse poets of banality in their themes and imagery, but until now the concept of “banality” has remained somewhat vague. Now this ambiguity is coming to an end, for the “Complete Collection of Poetic Banalities” has been published under the title “The Complete Poems of D. Ratgauz.” Here are collected examples and samples of all hackneyed, clichéd expressions, all worn-out epithets, all trite maxims—in any rhyme scheme (common ones, of course) and in any meter (commonly used ones, of course)… All that remains is to compile an alphabetical index for these volumes, and the result will be a book not without value for novice poets—much like the French language learning guide *Ne dites pas*, which lists expressions that should be avoided.
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, a poet, translator, and playwright, would be even more unsparing in his diaries:
1908. November 19 (November 6)
…I am preparing an analysis of D. Ratgauz’s poems, which were submitted for the Pushkin Prize. I first heard about this writer from the late P. I. Tchaikovsky, who considered him gifted. I cannot agree with the composer. In my opinion, Ratgauz is a tedious singer of melancholy—and, moreover, of melancholy that is groundless and aimless. Reading his two superbly published volumes—complete with facsimiles and a portrait of the author—brings to mind a dog howling at the moon; it howls without even knowing why.
So it’s safe to say that Daniil Maksimovich Ratgauz, a former student at the Law School of St. Vladimir’s University in Kyiv, was an extremely well-known and even somewhat controversial figure in the early 20th century.
During the Soviet era, he was gradually forgotten and erased from history. This is understandable—after all, Ratgauz emigrated in the 1920s. At first he lived in Berlin, then moved to Prague. He published two more collections of his poetry abroad and died at the age of 69.
However, none of this in any way justifies the complete oblivion of the poet’s name in his native Kharkiv. Our city takes such pride in its great sons and daughters that it probably outshines most other towns in Ukraine in this regard. Time and again, names appear on lists of “great Kharkivites” that have only an extremely indirect and fleeting connection to Kharkiv.
Incidentally, in the available materials about the poet’s life, only a couple of words are said about our city: “born on January 25 (February 6), 1868, into a banker’s family.”
I became curious, so I looked through the archives and here’s what I found. To begin with, the future poet was originally named David, not Daniil, at birth. The registry of Jewish births in Kharkiv from 1854 to 1869 clearly states: “January 25. The son of honorary citizen Max Abramovich Ratgauz was born and named David.”
The document “List of Merchants Who Declared Their Permanent Capital for 1871” contains a great deal of important and interesting information about the Ratgauz family itself. According to this list, Abram Ragauz, a Kharkiv merchant of the 1st guild, was 51 years old. His only son, Max (also known as Meyer) Ratgauz, was the father of five children, of whom David Ratgauz was the youngest.
According to reference books from that time, the family ran a business selling agricultural machinery in Kharkiv. Their store was located at Sumska Street, 24, and the Ratgauz family lived there as well. David (Daniel) Ratgauz’s father served for several years, until approximately 1872, as the elder of the Jewish prayer house located at Nemetskaya Street, 8.
In 1869, an international commercial bank was founded in St. Petersburg. Because it was affiliated with the largest banking houses in Paris, Berlin, and New York, its clients were able to make money transfers both within the Russian Empire and abroad. A branch of the bank opened in Kharkiv on October 1, 1872, and was located on Moskovskaya Street in the Eiland building, across from the telegraph station. Maxim Ratgauz was appointed its director.
The Ratgauz family is last mentioned in the 1879 lists of Kharkiv property owners.
Around this time, Max Ratgauz was transferred to the position of director of the bank’s Kyiv branch. The Ratgauz family sold their mansion on Sumskaya Street to the Hirschman family and moved permanently to Kyiv. As we recall, during the Jewish pogrom that took place in late April 1881, more than 1,000 houses and stores in Kyiv were destroyed. It is unknown whether the Ratgauz family suffered any losses at that time.
Here’s a story about a Kharkiv merchant family and a famous poet who was born in our city and literally took his first steps here. Does today’s Kharkiv need to remember Daniil (David) Ratgauz? In my opinion, yes. After all, his story and that of his family are an inseparable part of the past of our beloved city…
- About the military pilot school and the airfield in Kharkiv… - 04.11.2020
- Kharkiv Artisans and the 1887 Exhibition - 17.08.2020
- Nikanor Savich—A Political Career by Mistake - 13.07.2020