Ermil Ivanovich Kostrov entered the history of Russian literature principally as the translator of Homer's Iliad and the poems of Ossian. The personality of the poet played no less of a role in his posthumous fame. A simple-hearted man, gentle, talented, and completely indifferent to money, Kostrov was received by his contemporaries and immediate descendants as the embodiment of the romantic, unsettled, solitary poet. Stories of his poverty, early death, and even his frequent drunkenness lent a romantic aura to his name.

Ermil Ivanovich Kostrov was born on 6 January 1755 in the village of Sineglinskoe in the Slobodsky district of Viatka province. His father, Ivan Vukolovich Kostrov, a sexton in the local church, was twenty-six years old when Ermil was born; his mother, Ekaterina Artem'evna, was twenty-four. The future poet was their third child. He had a six-year-old sister, Ul'iana, and a three-year-old brother, Ivan. Nothing is known of...