Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin () was a Russian historian, writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for his fundamental History of the Russian State, a 12-volume national history.
Early life
Karamzin was born in the small village of Mikhailovka (modern-day Karamzinka village of
Maynsky District,
Ulyanovsk Oblast,
Russia) near
Simbirsk in the Znamenskoye family estate. Another version exists that he was born in 1765 in the Mikhailovka village of the Orenburg Governorate (modern-day Preobrazhenka village of the
Orenburg Oblast, Russia) where his father served, and in recent years Orenburg historians have been actively disputing the official version.
His father Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin (1724—1783) was a retired captain of the Imperial Russian Army who belonged to the
Russian nobility family of modest means founded by Semyon Karamzin in 1606. For many years its members had served in
Nizhny Novgorod as high-ranking officers and officials before Nikolay's grandfather Yegor Karamzin moved to Simbirsk with his wife Ekaterina Aksakova of the ancient Aksakov dynasty related to
Sergey Aksakov.
According to Nikolay Karamzin, his surname derived from Kara-mirza, a baptized
Tatars and his earliest-known ancestor who arrived to Moscow to serve under Russian rule. No records of him were left. The first documented Karamzin lived as early as 1534.
His mother Ekaterina Petrovna Karamzina (née Pazukhina) also came from a Russian nobility of moderate income founded in 1620 when Ivan Demidovich Pazukhin, a long-time officer, was granted lands and a title for his service during the Polish–Russian War. His two sons founded two family branches: one in Kostroma and one in Simbirsk which Ekaterina Karamzina belonged to.
Nikolay Karamzin was sent to Moscow to study under Swiss-German teacher Johann Matthias Schaden; he later moved to St Petersburg, where he made the acquaintance of Ivan Dmitriev, a Russian poet of some merit, and occupied himself with translating essays by foreign writers into his native language. After residing for some time in Saint Petersburg he went to Simbirsk, where he lived in retirement until induced to revisit Moscow. There, finding himself in the midst of the society of learned men, he again took to literary work.
In 1789, he resolved to travel, visiting Germany, France, Switzerland (a plaque in Geneva bears witness to this
In the same periodical, Karamzin also published translations from French and some original stories, including Poor Liza and Natalia the Boyar's Daughter (both 1792). These stories introduced Russian readers to sentimentalism, and Karamzin was hailed as "a Russian Sterne".
As a writer
In 1794, Karamzin abandoned his literary journal and published a miscellany in two volumes entitled
Aglaia, in which appeared, among other stories, "The Island of Bornholm" and
Ilya Muromets, the former being one of the first Russian
Gothic fiction and the latter, a story based on the adventures of the well-known
Ilya Muromets. From 1797 to 1799, he issued another miscellany or poetical almanac,
The Aonides, in conjunction with Derzhavin and
Ivan Dmitriev. In 1798 he compiled
The Pantheon, a collection of pieces from the works of the most celebrated authors ancient and modern, translated into Russian. Many of his lighter productions were subsequently printed by him in a volume entitled
My Trifles. Admired by Alexander Pushkin and
Vladimir Nabokov, the style of his writings is elegant and flowing, modelled on the easy sentences of the French prose writers rather than the long periodical paragraphs of the old Slavonic school. Karamzin also promoted a more "feminine" style of writing.
His example proved beneficial for the creation of a Russian literary language, a major contribution for the history of Russian literature.
In 1802 and 1803, Karamzin edited the journal the Envoy of Europe ( Vestnik Evropy). It was not until after the publication of this work that he realized where his strength lay, and commenced his 12 volume History of the Russian State. In order to accomplish the task, he secluded himself for two years at Simbirsk.
When Emperor Alexander learned the cause of his retirement, Karamzin was invited to Tver, where he read to the emperor the first eight volumes of his history. He was a strong supporter of the anti-Polish policies of the Russian Empire, and expressed hope that "there would be no Poland under any shape or name".
He did not, however, live to carry his work further than the eleventh volume, terminating it at the accession of Michael Romanov in 1613. He died on 22 May (old style) 1826, in the Tauride Palace. A monument was erected to his memory at Simbirsk in 1845.
As a linguist and philologist
Karamzin is credited for having introduced the letter Ë/ë into the Russian alphabet some time after 1795. Prior to that simple E/e had been used, though there was also a rare form patterned after the extant letter Ю/ю.
Note that Ë/ë is not an obligatory letter, and simple E/e is still often used in books other than dictionaries and schoolchildren's primers.
As a historian
Until the appearance of his work, little had been done in this direction in Russia. The preceding attempt of Vasily Tatishchev was merely a rough sketch, inelegant in style, and without the true spirit of criticism. Karamzin was most industrious in accumulating materials, and the notes to his volumes are mines of interesting information. Perhaps Karamzin may justly be criticized for the false gloss and romantic air thrown over the early Russian annals; in this respect his work is reminiscent of that of Sir
Walter Scott, whose writings were at that time creating a great sensation throughout Europe and probably influenced Karamzin.
Karamzin wrote openly as the panegyrist of the autocracy; indeed, his work has been styled the Epic of Despotism and considered Ivan III as the architect of Russian greatness, a glory that he had earlier (perhaps while more under the influence of Western ideas) assigned to Peter the Great. (The deeds of Ivan the Terrible are described with disgust, though.)
In the battle pieces, he demonstrates considerable powers of description, and the characters of many of the chief personages in the Russian annals are drawn in firm and bold lines. As a critic Karamzin was of great service to his country; in fact he may be regarded as the founder of the review and essay (in the Western style) among the Russians.
Also, Karamzin is sometimes considered a founding father of Russian conservatism. Upon appointing him a state historian, Alexander I greatly valued Karamzin's advice on political matters. His conservative views were clearly expounded in The Memoir on Old and New Russia, written for Alexander I in 1812. This scathing attack on reforms proposed by Mikhail Speransky was to become a cornerstone of official ideology of imperial Russia for years to come.
Commemoration
Several places in Russia were named after Karamzin:
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Karamzina village (now part of Ulyanovsk);
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Proyezd Karamzina (a road in Moscow);
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Nikolay Karamzin street (streets in Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Mayna, Ulyanovsk Oblast);
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A monument was built in honor of Karamzin in Ulyanovsk;
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Another monument was built in honor of Nikolay Karamzin at Ostafyevo Museum-Estate near Moscow Ring Road.
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The Millennium of Russia monument in Veliky Novgorod includes a statue of Karamzin;
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The Karamzin Public Library in Simbirsk, created in honor of the famous countryman, was opened to readers on April 18, 1848;
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In 2016 the Ulyanovsk State Regional Scientific Library organized an open literary competition dedicated to the 250 years anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin. For this competition only poems about Karamzin and poems based on his works were accepted.
In 2016 on the occasion of the 250th birthday of the writer, the Central Bank of Russia issued a silver two-ruble coin dedicated to Karamzin in the series Outstanding People of Russia.
Selected works
Prose
Fiction
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Evgenyi i Yuliya ( ), English translation: Evgeniy and Julia (1789)
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Bednaya Liza ( ), English translation: Poor Liza (1792)
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Natalya, boyarskaya doch ( ), English translation: Natalya the Boyar's Daughter (1792)
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Prekrasnaia tsarevna i schastlivyi karla ( ), English translation: The Beautiful Princess and the Happy Dwarf (1792)
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Ostrov Borngolm ( ), English translation: Island of Bornholm (1793)
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Afinskaya zhizn ( ), English translation: Athenian Life (1794)
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Melodor k Filaletu ( ), English translation: Melodor to Filalet (1794; paired with a sequel, Filalet to Melodor)
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Yuliya ( ), English translation: Julia (1796)
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Marfa-posadnitsa ( ), English translation: Martha the Mayoress (1802)
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Moya ispoved ( ), English translation: My Confession (1802)
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Chuvstvitelnyi i kholodnyi ( ), English translation: The Sensitive and the Cold (1803)
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Rytsar nashego vremeni ( ), English translation: A Knight of Our Times (1803)
Non-fiction
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Pisma russkogo puteshestvennika ( ), English translation: Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791–92)
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Zapiska o drevney i novoy Rossii ( ), English translation: Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia (1811)
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Istoriya gosudarstva Rossiyskogo ( ), English translation: History of the Russian State (1816–26)
Poetry
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Poetry ( ), 1787
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Darovaniya ( ), English translation: Gifts (1796)
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Solovey ( ), English translation: Nightingale (1796)
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Protey, ili Nesoglasiya stikhotvortsa ( ), English translation: Proteus, or Inconsistencies of a Poet (1798)
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Ego imperatorskomu velichestvu Alexandru I, samoderzhtsu vserossiyskomu, na vosshestvie ego na prestol ( , English translation: To His Imperial Highness Alexander I, All-Russian Autocrat, on the Occasion of His Rise to the Throne (1801)
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Gimn gluptsam ( ), English translation: Hymn to the Fools (1802)
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K Emilii ( ), English translation: To Emilie (1802)
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K dobrodeteli ( ), English translation: To Virtue (1802)
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Osvobozhdenie Evropy i slava Alexandra I ( ), English translation: The Freeing of Europe and the Glory of Alexander I (1814)
See also
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List of Russian historians
Notes
Further reading
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Anderson, Roger B. N.M. Karamzin's Prose: The Teller and the Tale. Houston: Cordovan Press, 1974.
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Black, J.L. Nicholas Karamzin and Russian Society in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Russian Political and Historical Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975 (hardcover, ).
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Cross, A.G. N.M. Karamzin: A Study of His Literary Career, 1783–1803. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971 ().
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Essays on Karamzin: Russian Man-of-Letters, Political Thinker, Historian, 1766–1826 (Slavistic Printings and Reprintings; 309). Edited by J.L. Black. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 1975.
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Grudzinska Gross, Irena. "The Tangled Tradition: Custine, Herberstein, Karamzin, and the Critique of Russia", Slavic Review, Vol. 50, No. 4. (Winter, 1991), pp. 989–998.
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Karamzin, Selected Prose of N.M. Karamzin. Trans. and Intr. by Henry M. Nebel, Jr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969.
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Nebel, Henry M., Jr. N.M. Karamzin: A Russian Sentimentalist. The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1967.
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Pipes, Richard. Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis (Russian Research Center Studies; 33). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.
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Fraanje, Maarten. Nikolai Karamzin and Christian Heinrich Spiess: "Poor Liza" in the Context of the Eighteenth-Century German Suicide Story. Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia Newsletter Volume 27 (1999).
External links
