Nikolay Karamzin (1766-1826)

Russian writer and historian.

In the early 90’s of the XVIII century Karamzin began publishing the "Moscow Journal", which played a major role in the development of literary interests and tastes of the educated Russian society at that time. This magazine is full of his works, one of which is Letters of a Russian Traveler, Karamzin tells of his impressions from trips to Germany, Switzerland, France and England. "The letters" contain many descriptions of nature but also the characteristics of cultural life in European countries. The deep admiration for Western culture, which permeates Letters of a Russian Traveler was of great educational value for the time.

 

The journal also contained two of Karamzin's novels Poor Liza and Natalia, the Nobleman’s Daughter, which clearly reflected the main sentimental ideas used in Western literature at the time. Poor Liza was a huge success and caused a lot of literary responses and imitations. In this story, despite the conventionality of its images, it was close to the realities of life, which carried a strong impression on readers.

 

Probably the greatest achievement of Karamzin was his reformation of the Russian literary language. He rid the Russian literary language of Slavonicisms and long and complicated words of the Latin-German design. He introduced a lot of new words and expressions, partly created by himself, partly taken from the ancient literary works he had studied as a historian.

 

The public views of Karamzin were largely contradictory, characteristic of most educated Russian people of his time. His passion for preaching for the freedom of Russia was in stark contrast with the fact that he himself owned serfs.