There is not a great deal of information available about the life of Ivan Kozlov, and during the twenty years of his literary career there is little to tell beyond the “inward biography” of a blind and paralyzed invalid. The gap has been filled by an impression of his life that is more hagiographic than realistic, generated by his courageous struggle with his afflictions and by the autobiographical nature of much of his poetry. During his lifetime the result of his well-publicized disability was a sometimes patronizing appreciation on the part of contemporary critics and poets. The most blatant example is the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz's praise for Kozlov's translation of his Crimean sonnets (Krymskie sonety Adama Mitskevicha. Perevody i podrazhaniia Ivana Kozlova, 1829): Mickiewicz confided to friends that he found the translation extremely poor and had spoken well of it only because its author was blind. Vasilii Andreevich...