Editing Gavrila Derzhavin (section)

===Early life and family===

Derzhavin was born in the [[Kazan Governorate]] into a landed family of impoverished Russian nobility. His family descended from a 15th-century [[Tatars|Tatar]] nobleman named ''[[Morza]]'' Bagrim, who converted to Christianity and became a [[vassal]] of [[Grand Prince]] [[Vasily II of Moscow|Vasily II]].<ref>[http://www.tstu.ru/win/kultur/literary/derj/rod.htm Derzhavin's biography] (in Russian)</ref><ref name="Rancour-Laferriere2000">{{cite book|author=Daniel Rancour-Laferriere|title=Russian Nationalism from an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Imagining Russia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3giAQAAIAAJ&q=The+poet+Derzhavin+descended+from+the+Tatar+murza+Bagrim|year=2000|publisher=E. Mellen Press|isbn=978-0-7734-7671-4|page=90}}</ref> Bagrim was rewarded with lands for his service to the prince, and from him descended noble families of Narbekov, Akinfov and Keglev (or [[Teglev]]).<ref name="khodasevich">{{cite book|last1=Khodasevich|first1=Vladislav|title=Derzhavin: A Biography|author-link=Vladislav Khodasevich|date=2007|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=9780299224233|pages=5–7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zKGRO5-Y_LgC&pg=PA5|access-date=11 January 2018|language=en}}</ref>

A member of the Narbekov family, who received the nickname ''Derzhava'' (Russian for "[[Globus cruciger|orb]]" or "power"), was the patriarch of the Derzhavin family. The Derzhavins once held profitable estates along the [[Myosha River]], about {{convert|25|mi|km}} from the capital city of [[Kazan]], but over time they were divided, sold or mortgaged. By the time Gavrila Derzhavin's father, Roman Nikolayevich Derzhavin, was born in 1706, he stood to inherit only a few parcels of land, occupied by few peasants. Roman joined the military and in 1742, at age 36, he married a widowed distant relative Fyokla Andreyevna Gorina (''née'' Kozlova). She was from a similar background and also possessed a few scattered estates. The estates were the source of constant lawsuits, fights and feuds with neighbors, sometimes resulting in violence.<ref name="khodasevich"/>

Derzhavin was born nearly nine months after his parents were wed, but the location of his birth remains a point of dispute.<ref name="khodasevich"/> Derzhavin considered himself a native of Kazan—which proudly proclaims itself as the city of his birth—but he was possibly born at one of his family's estates in Sokury or Karmachi, in [[Laishevsky District|Laishevsky County]].<ref name="kazanskie">{{cite news|title=Сокуры: красота на земле|url=http://kazved.ru/article/40252.aspx|access-date=11 January 2018|work=Kazanskie Vedemosti|date=4 July 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Frolov|first1=Yuri|title=Так где же родился Гавриил Державин? {{!}} Республика Татарстан|url=http://rt-online.ru/p-rubr-obsh-37577/|access-date=11 January 2018|work=Gazeta Respublika Tatarstan|date=8 July 2003|language=ru}}</ref> The Laishevsky District is informally known as the Derzhavinsky District because of its association with Derzhavin.<ref>{{cite web|title=Родина Г.Р. Державина|url=http://visit-tatarstan.com/locations/sights/places/birthplacederzhavin|publisher=Visit-Tatarstan.com|access-date=11 January 2018|language=ru}}</ref> He was named Gavriil (Russian for Gabriel), as his birth was 10 days before the Synaxis of the [[Gabriel|Archangel Gabriel]], celebrated on 13 July in Slavic Orthodoxy.<ref name="khodasevich"/> He was a sickly child, and his parents followed the traditional practice of the era and "baked the baby" ({{Lang|ru-Latn|perepekaniye rebyonka}})—an ancient ceremony in which sickly or premature babies are placed on a [[Peel (tool)|bread peel]] and put in and out of the oven three times.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barta|first1=Peter I.|title=Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781134699377|pages=94–95|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fI-BC4NvqNEC&pg=PA94|access-date=11 January 2018|language=en}}</ref>

Derzhavin's father was transferred to [[Yaransk]] and then [[Stavropol]]. Two more children were born,
a boy and a girl, although the latter died young.<ref name="khodasevich"/>