Terrible Tsarinas

Elizabeth tried to shake some life into these events by en-

couraging the first theater performances in the history of Russia.

She authorized the installation of a company of French actors in

St. Petersburg, while the Senate granted the Hilferding Germans

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the privilege of staging comedies and operas in both capitals.

Moreover, Russian popular shows began to be offered to the pub-

lic on feast days in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Among others,

The Mystery of the Nativity was staged; however, out of respect for

Orthodox dogmas, Elizabeth prohibited anyone from impersonat-

ing the Blessed Virgin; thus, instead of having an actress play that

role, an icon would be brought on stage whenever the play called

for the mother of God to speak. Moreover, a law enforced by the

police prevented any plays (even those of religious inspiration)

from being produced in private residences.

At around this time a young author, Alexander Sumarokov,

created a hit with a tragedy written in the Russian language:

Khorev. And a 1000-seat theater, considered an incredible innova-

tion, was built in Yaroslavl, in the provinces. It was founded by a

certain Fyodor Grigorievich Volkov, who put on plays that he had

composed, in prose and in verse. Often, he acted in them himself.

Astonished by the Russian elite’s sudden passion for the theater,

Elizabeth took her benevolence as far as authorizing actors to

bear swords, an honor previously reserved for the nobility.

For the most part, the plays presented in St. Petersburg and

Moscow were pallid Russian adaptations of the most renowned

French plays. Molière’s The Miser and Tartuffe and Corneille’s

Polyeucte were favorites. Suddenly, struck by a flash of inspiration,

Sumarokov wrote a Russian historical drama, Sinav and Truvor,

based on the history of the republic of Novgorod. This experi-

ment in national literature made it all the way to Paris, where its

novelty was hailed as a curiosity in Le Mercure de France. Little by

little the Russian public, impelled by Elizabeth and Ivan Shuvalov,

became interested in this new form of expression; while it began

as an imitation of the great œuvres of Western literature, when

rendered in the mother tongue it acquired a semblance of original-

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ity. Sumarokov was on a trajectory; he launched a literary review,

The Busy Bee, which evolved in a year’s time into a weekly maga-

zine, Leisure, published by the Cadet Corps. He even enlivened the

texts with a bit of irony, in the style of Voltaire but devoid of the

least philosophical provocation. In short, he was a whirlwind,

stirring up something new every day in this virgin field. And still,

he and other pioneers as talented as Trediakov and Kantemir were

bested by yet another author who had sprung to prominence.

And in this case, too, it was Shuvalov who “discovered” the genius

in that odd character, part intellectual, part Jack-of-all-trades,

part vagabond, that was Sergei Lomonosov.

Son of a humble fisherman in the Arkhangelsk region, Lo-

monosov spent most of his childhood on his father’s boat, on the

cold and stormy waters between the White Sea and the Atlantic

Ocean. A parish priest taught him to read and, inspired by an

abrupt passion for scholarship and for wandering, he fled the fam-

ily home and set off on foot, ragged and famished, sleeping any-

where he could, eating anything he could find, living on charity

and thievery but never deviating from his goal: Moscow. He was

17 years old when he finally arrived, with his belly empty and his

head full of dazzling plans. Picked up by a monk, he presented

himself as the son of a priest who had come to study under the

great minds of the city; and lo and behold, he was admitted, as the

monk’s protégé, to the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy (the only edu-

cational institution then in existence in the Russian empire). He

was quickly noted there for his exceptional intelligence and sharp

memory, on the basis of which he was sent to St. Petersburg and

from thence to Germany. His principals instructed him to com-

plete his knowledge in all areas. In Marburg, the philosopher and

mathematician Christian von Wolff befriended him, encouraged

him in his readings, introduced him to the works Descartes and to

intellectual debate.

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Terrible Tsarinas

But, while Lomonosov was attracted by intellectual specula-

tion, he also enjoyed poetry, especially since in Germany, under

the aegis of Frederick II (who had a passion for culture), versifica-

tion was a very fashionable pastime. Exalted by the examples

from above, Lomonosov wrote verse too, plentifully and quickly.

However, these literary exercises did not keep him pinned behind

his desk for too long. All of a sudden he dropped his studies and

started frequenting gambling dens and chasing skirts. His con-

duct was so scandalous that he was threatened with arrest, and