Nikolay Karamzin

Biography

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin (1766-1826) was a Russian historian, poet, and journalist who was the leading exponent of the sentimentalist school in Russian literature. From an early age, Karamzin was interested in Enlightenment philosophy. After extensive travel in western Europe, Karamzin described his impressions in his Letters of a Russian Traveller (1789–1790). Written in a self-revealing style influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Laurence Sterne, the 'Letters' helped introduce to Russia the sentimental style then popular in western Europe. Karamzin’s tale Poor Liza (1792), about a village girl who commits suicide after a tragic love affair, soon became the most celebrated work of the Russian sentimental school. In 1803 Karamzin’s friendship with the emperor Alexander I resulted in his appointment as court historian. The rest of his life was devoted to his monumental 12-volume History of the Russian State (1816-29); the first general survey of Russian history, conceived as a literary rather than an academic work. A main source for Pushkin’s drama Boris Godunov, Karamzin's 'History' is considered to have contributed much to the development of Russian literary language, for in it he sought to bring written Russian closer to the rhythms and conciseness of educated speech and to equip the language with a full cultural vocabulary.