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Guillaume du Vintrais (c.1553-c.1610) was a fictional 16th-century French poet created by Soviet writers Yuri Veinert and Yakov Kharon while imprisoned in a GULAG labor camp in the 1940s.

Fictional biography
Du Vintrais was born around 1553 in Gascony, France. He was a contemporary of poets such as Pierre de Ronsard and Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne. As a young man, du Vintrais moved to Paris and became a court poet known for his satirical and politically provocative verses.

In 1572, du Vintrais was imprisoned in the Bastille for his Huguenot beliefs during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.[1] After his release, he continued writing poems critical of the monarchy and Catholic church. He went into self-imposed exile in England in the 1580s to avoid further persecution.[2]

Little is known of du Vintrais' later life. He likely died around 1610. The only surviving works attributed to him are 100 French sonnets supposedly discovered in the 19th century.

Poetry
Du Vintrais' surviving works consist of 100 Petrarcan sonnets written in 16th-century French. The sonnets' themes express the poet's passions for freedom, justice, and romantic love. Literary scholars have noted du Vintrais' talent for using the conventional love sonnet form to subtly voice political and religious dissent.

Many of du Vintrais' satirical sonnets mock the abuses of monarchical power and religious hypocrisy in 16th-century France. References to exile and imprisonment underscore the persecution faced by Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion. Sonnets celebrating poetic inspiration often portray verse as a means of defiance against tyranny.

Nature imagery features prominently across du Vintrais' sonnets, reflecting the growing interest in Neoplatonist philosophy among French Renaissance poets. The style, meter, and diction of his love sonnets suggest the influence of poets such as Pierre de Ronsard, while biblical allusions reflect du Vintrais' Protestant faith.

Du Vintrais was one of the first poets to popularize the sonnet form in French literature. His lyrical mastery of the 14-line structure later influenced 19th-century French sonneteers such as Charles Baudelaire.

History
Guilleaume du Vintrais never existed. He was invented in the 1940s by Soviet writers Yuri Veinert and Yakov Kharon while they were imprisoned in a GULAG labor camp in Siberia.

Veinert and Kharon wrote the 100 fictional French sonnets and crafted an imaginary 16th-century biography for their fictional poet. The two claimed they were merely translating du Vintrais' recently rediscovered work. Literary scholars believe they likely created the poet to subtly express their own passions and critiques without attracting the suspicion of gulag authorities.

Veinert, arrested in 1937, was an amateur poet who began writing verses in exile. Kharon was arrested in the 1930s as part of Stalin's purges of the Soviet intelligentsia. Their friendship blossomed in the gulag through a mutual love of poetry.

The story of du Vintrais' modern "creation" only emerged after Veinert's death in 1951. Veinert and Kharon's fictional sonnets were first privately published in 1947. A more complete version edited by Kharon was released in 1954. The full truth behind du Vintrais was finally made public in the 1980s through journalist Alexei Simonov's friendship with Kharon.