Editing Alexander Sumarokov

{{Short description|Russian poet and playwright (1717–1777)}}
{{expand Russian|date=July 2018|topic=bio}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Alexander Sumarokov
| image              = Sumarokov by A.Losenko.jpg
| caption            = Portrait by [[Anton Losenko]]
| birth_date         = 25 November 1717
| birth_place        = [[Lappeenranta|Villmanstrand]], [[Sweden]]
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1777|10|12|1717|11|25|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Moscow]], [[Russian Empire|Russia]]
| children           = [[Ekaterina Kniazhnina|Ekaterina]]
}}
'''Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov''' ({{langx|ru|Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Сумаро́ков}}; {{OldStyleDateDY|25 November|1717|14 November}}, [[Lappeenranta|Villmanstrand]] – {{OldStyleDateDY|12 October|1777|1 October}}) was a Russian poet and playwright who single-handedly created classical theatre in [[Russia]], thus assisting [[Mikhail Lomonosov]] to inaugurate the reign of [[classicism]] in [[Russian literature]].

== Life and works ==
Alexander Sumarakov was born in 1717 into a family of Muscovite gentry. He was born in [[Villmanstrand]] (now Lappeenranta) in Swedish-ruled Finland, where his father was most likely serving in the [[Great Northern War]] against Sweden.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Levitt |first=Marcus C. |title=Early Modern Russian Writers, Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries |publisher=Gale |year=1995 |isbn=9780810357112 |editor-last=Levitt |editor-first=Marcus C. |series=Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 150 |location=Detroit |chapter=Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov |oclc=31969241}}</ref> Sumarokov was educated at the Cadet School in [[Saint Petersburg]], where he became closely familiar with French learning. Neither an aristocratic dilettante like [[Antiokh Kantemir]] nor a learned professor like [[Vasily Trediakovsky]] or [[Mikhail Lomonosov]], he was the first gentleman in [[Russian Empire|Russia]] to choose the profession of letters.<ref name="Mirsky62"/> He consequently may be called the father of the Russian literary profession.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Nicholas V. Riasanovsky |first=Nicholas V. |last=Riasanovsky |title=A History of Russia |edition=6th |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |page=292 }}</ref> His pursuits did not undermine his position in the family; indeed, his grandson was made a count and, when the Sumarokov family became extinct a century later, the title eventually passed to Prince [[Felix Yusupov]], who also held the title of Count Sumarokov-Elston.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

Sumarokov wrote much and regularly, chiefly in those literary genres neglected by Lomonosov. His principal importance rests in his plays, among which ''Khorev'' (1749) is regarded as the first regular Russian drama. He ran the first permanent public theatre in the Russian capital, where he worked with the likes of [[Fyodor Volkov]] and [[Ivan Dmitrevsky]]. His plays were based on the subjects taken from Russian history (''Dmitry Samozvanets''), proto-Russian [[legend]]s (''Khorev'') or on [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]an plots (''Makbet'', ''Hamlet'').

In his evaluation of Sumarokov's plays, literary historian [[D. S. Mirsky]] writes: {{blockquote|It was no doubt that the good acting made the reputation of Sumarokov, as the literary value of his plays is small. His tragedies are a stultification of the classical method; their Alexandrine couplets are exceedingly harsh; their characters are marionettes. His comedies are adaptations of French plays, with a feeble sprinkling of Russian traits. Their dialogue is a stilted prose that had never been spoken by anyone and reeked of translation.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=D. S. Mirsky |first=D.S. |last=Mirsky |title=A History of Russian Literature |publisher=Northwestern University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-8101-1679-0 |page=54 }}</ref>}}

Sumarokov also wrote non-dramatic works. He was the first Russian author to write [[fable]]s, a genre which subsequently flourished in Russia. His satires, in which he sometimes imitates the style of popular poetry, are described by Mirsky as "racy and witty attacks against the government clerks and officers of law."<ref name="Mirsky62">{{Cite book |last=Mirsky |first=D. S. |author-link=D. S. Mirsky |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Russian_Literature_from_the/RUh9AAAAIAAJ|title=A History of Russian Literature from the Earliest Times to the Death of Dostoyevsky (1881) |location=New York |year=1927 |publisher=A. A. Knopf|pages=62-63}}</ref> He wrote love songs intended for popular consumption, which brought him fame and made him chief among a group of songwriting poets who followed him.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Serman |first=Ilya |title=The Cambridge History of Russian Literature |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1992 |isbn=9780521415545 |editor-last=Moser |editor-first=Charles |pages=62-63 |chapter=The Eighteenth Century: Neoclassicism and the Enlightenment, 1730–90 |doi=10.1017/CHOL9780521415545.003 |oclc=24794826}}</ref> Mirsky praises Sumarokov's songs for their "prodigious metrical inventiveness (which was not so much as imitated by any of his successors) and a genuine gift of melody."<ref name="Mirsky62"/>

Sumarokov was also one of the earliest Russian journalists and literary critics. He edited the journal ''Yezhemesyachnye sochineniya'' (Monthly compositions) from 1759 to 1764. According to Mirsky, Sumarokov's literary criticism is "usually carping and superficial" but played a significant role in teaching Russian readers the rules of classical taste. He was a follower of [[Voltaire]] and was proud of having exchanged several letters with him.<ref name="Mirsky62"/> Amanda Ewington has argued that Sumarokov was not only influenced by Voltaire as such but accessed a wide variety of European influences, from Shakespeare to [[Lope de Vega]], through the conduit of Voltaire.<ref>{{cite book |first=Amanda |last=Ewington |title=A Voltaire for Russia |publisher=Northwestern University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8101-2696-1 |page=20 }}</ref> Mirsky describes the playwright's personality as follows: {{blockquote|Vain and self-conscious, Sumarokov considered himself a Russian [[Jean Racine|Racine]] and Voltaire in one. In personal relations he was irritable, touchy, and often petty. But his exacting touchiness contributed, almost as much as did Lomonosov's calm dignity, to raise the profession of the pen and to give it a definite place in society.<ref name="Mirsky62"/>}}

His daughter [[Ekaterina Kniazhnina|Ekaterina]], an 18th-century poet, is often considered to be the first Russian woman writer,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wbCH3Zc9NOkC&pg=PA47 |title=The Romantic Poetess: European Culture, Politics, and Gender, 1820–1840 |page=47 |last=Vincent |first=Patrick H |year=2004 |isbn=1584654317}}</ref> as she, together with {{Interlanguage link multi|Elizaveta Kheraskova|ru|3=Хераскова, Елизавета Васильевна}} and {{Interlanguage link multi|Alexandra Rzhevskaia|ru|3=Ржевская, Александра Федотовна}} were the first women to see their works printed in Russian journals.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R_Vu_qlYkNgC&pg=PA330 |title=A History of Women's Writing in Russia |page=330 |last=Barker |first=Adele Marie |author2=Gheith, Jehanne M |year=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=1139433156}}</ref>

==Opera libretti==
Sumarokov wrote the first Russian-language [[libretto]] for an opera: that of ''[[Tsefal i Prokris]]'' (''Cephalus and Prokris''), by [[Francesco Araja]], an Italian composer in the Russian court. The opera was staged in [[St. Petersburg|Saint Petersburg]] on 7 March [O.S. 27 February] 1755. He also wrote the libretto for the second opera set to a Russian text, ''Altsesta'' (''Alceste'', 1758), by German composer [[Hermann Raupach]] (1728–1778), also serving in the Russian court.

== Editions in English ==

* {{cite book|title=Selected Tragedies of A. P. Sumarokov |others=Translated by Richard and Raymond Fortune |location=Evanston, Ill. |publisher=Northwestern University Press |year=1970 |ref=none |ISBN=0810103265 |OCLC=1484985587}}
* {{cite book|title=Selected Aesthetic Works of Sumarokov and Karamzin |others= Translated by Henry M. Nebel, Jr. |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=University Press of America |year=1981 |ref=none |ISBN=9780819119094 |OCLC=7775604}}

==References==
{{mirsky}}

==Notes==
<references/>

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061009000232/http://www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/sumarokov.html Poems by Alexander Sumarokov] {{In lang|ru}}
*[https://rvb.ru/18vek/sumarokov/ Biography and works of Alexander Sumarokov] on the Russian Virtual Library {{In lang|ru}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumarokov, Alexander}}
[[Category:1717 births]]
[[Category:1777 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Lappeenranta]]
[[Category:Nobility from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Dramatists and playwrights from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Male poets from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Male writers from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Opera librettists from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:18th-century poets from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:18th-century dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Russian male dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:18th-century male writers from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of St. Anna]]