"On the Day of the Accession to the
Throne of the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna"--this last being the
expression of the general rapture at the accession of Peter the Great's
daughter.

The most important feature of all Lomonosoff's poetical productions is
the fine, melodious language, which was a complete novelty at that time,
together with smooth, regular versification. Not one of his
contemporaries possessed so profound and varied a knowledge of the
Russian popular and book languages, and this knowledge it was which
enabled him to make such a wide choice between the ancient Church
Slavonic, ancient Russian, the popular, and the bookish tongues.

In Peter the Great's Epoch of Reform, the modern "secular" or "civil"
alphabet was substituted for the ancient Church Slavonic, and the modern
Russian language, which Lomonosoff did so much to improve, began to
assume shape, literature and science at last freeing themselves
completely from ecclesiasticism and monasticism.

The first writer to divorce literature and science, like Lomonosoff, a
talent of the transition period, between the Epoch of Reform and the
brilliant era of Katherine II.--a product, in education and culture, of
the Reform Epoch, though he strove to escape from its traditions--was
Alexander Petrovitch Sumarokoff (1717-1777). Insignificant in comparison
with Lomonosoff, the most complete contrast with the peasant-genius by
his birth and social rank, which were of the highest, he was plainly the
forerunner of a new era; and in the sense in which Feofan Prokopovitch
is called "the first secular Russian writer," Sumarokoff must be
described as "the first Russian literary man."

The Empress Anna Ioannovna had had a troop of Italian actors, early in
her reign; and in 1735 a troop of actors and singers. The Empress
Elizaveta Petrovna revived the theater, and during her reign there were
even two troops of actors, one French, the other Italian, for ballet and
opera-bouffe (1757), both subsidized by the court. Sometimes an audience
was lacking at their performances, and on one occasion at least,
Elizaveta Petrovna improved upon the Scripture parable; when an
insufficient number of spectators presented themselves at the French
comedy, she forthwith dispatched mounted messengers to numerous persons
of rank and distinction, with a categorical demand to know why they had
absented themselves, and a warning that henceforth a fine of fifty
rubles would be exacted for such