Alexander Sumarokov

Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov (1717–1777) was a Russian poet and playwright who helped establish classical theatre in Russia and, with it, the reign of classicism in the country's literature during the second half of the eighteenth century. He is often called the father of the Russian literary profession, since he was among the first gentlemen of his country to make writing his main occupation.

Born into a noble family, he was educated at the cadet school in Saint Petersburg, where he grew familiar with French culture. He began with a military and court career, but soon devoted himself largely to writing. His first tragedy, Khorev, brought him fame. He later worked with the Yaroslavl theatre company, whose leading actor was Fyodor Volkov, and in 1756 he became director of the first permanent public theatre in the capital.

His output was wide-ranging. He wrote tragedies on Russian, historical and legendary subjects, comedies of manners, opera libretti and verse in nearly every genre then fashionable: odes, epistles, satires, elegies and madrigals. He experimented with many metres and stanza forms. He is also counted among Russia's first parodists; his Absurd Odes mocked the grandiloquent style of Mikhail Lomonosov. In his satires he attacked official abuses and the arrogance of landowners. As one of Russia's earliest literary journalists and critics, he edited periodicals and helped teach Russian readers the rules of classical taste, admiring Voltaire and exchanging letters with him.

His later years were difficult. He lost the theatre post in 1761, moved to Moscow in 1769, and, abandoned by his patrons and short of money, died in poverty. His legacy is twofold: he pioneered Russian drama and the literary profession, and he paved the way for later writers who, though they departed from his norms, inherited the craft he helped to establish.