Authors

Russian · 1743–1816

Gavriil Derzhavin

Gavriil Derzhavin was the dominant Russian poet of the eighteenth century, whose odes — including 'Felitsa' (to Catherine the Great) and 'God' — combined the grandeur of Lomonosov's rhetoric with a new personal directness. He served Catherine and three subsequent tsars in senior administrative positions. Pushkin, who met the aged Derzhavin at his lycée examination in 1815, acknowledged him as his most important poetic predecessor. His reputation has been overshadowed by the Pushkin era but he remains the supreme poet of the Russian Enlightenment.