Mikhail Kheraskov

Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (Russian: Михаи́л Матве́евич Хера́сков; 5 November [O.S. 25 October] 1733 – 9 October [O.S. 27 September] 1807) was a Russian poet and playwright. A leading figure of the Russian Enlightenment, Kheraskov was regarded as the most important Russian poet by Catherine the Great and her contemporaries.

Kheraskov's father was a Wallachian boyar who settled in Ukraine. Patronized by his Freemason friends, Mikhail furthered his education abroad and was appointed dean of the Moscow University in 1763 at the age of 30.

In 1771–1779, he wrote the Rossiad (Russian: Россиада, Rossiada), the first Russian epic in the tradition of Homer and Virgil, about Ivan the Terrible's taking of Kazan in 1552. The Rossiad's only rival for the title of the longest poem in the Russian language is Kheraskov's Vladimir Reborn (1785), concerned with the baptism of Kievan Rus.

Somewhat more popular is his oriental tale Bakhariana (1803). Kheraskov also wrote 20 plays but, like the rest of his writings, they have been largely neglected by posterity.

He spent much of his time in Grebnevo, his manorial estate near Moscow. Mikhail Timofeyevich Vysotsky (1791–1837, Russian guitarist-virtuoso and guitar composer) was a godson of Mikhail Kheraskov.

Mikhail Kheraskov was born in 1733 in the city of Pereiaslav. His father, Matei Herescu, was a stolnik (a minor Wallachian nobleman) and a descendant of Wallachian boyars. He was also the brother-in-law of General Toma Cantacuzino (1665-1720), a Wallachian cavalry commander who served under Peter the Great. Herescu and other members of the Wallachian and Moldavian nobility had moved to the Russian Empire and entered the service of Peter following the unsuccessful Pruth River Campaign, a Russian offensive which sought to expel the Ottoman Empire from Moldavia and establish Russian garrisons in Moldavian fortress towns. Matei Herescu changed his name to Matvei Andreevich Kheraskov and received an estate near Pereiaslav in Left-bank Ukraine (along with 5,000 serfs, by some accounts). He attained the rank of major in the newly formed Chevalier Guard Regiment and eventually became commandant of the Pereiaslav fortress. He was married to Anna Danilovna Druckie-Sokolinskie, and died in 1734, leaving Anna to raise their three children, of which Mikhail was the youngest. In November 1735, Anna married Prince Nikita Yurievich Trubetskoy, a seasoned officer who was then serving as the general-krigs-komissar in the Ukrainian fortress town Izium, where Mikhail spent his earliest years. Because of his ancestry and the connections his stepfather afforded him, Kheraskov enjoyed the privileges of the highest ranks of the Russian nobility.

In September 1740, Trubetskoy was appointed Prosecutor General of the Governing Senate and moved to St. Petersburg with his family. In September 1743, he reported to the Office of Heraldry that his biological children and stepchildren were able to "read and write Russian, and are being taught the French and German languages, geography, arithmetic and geometry." In December, Trubetskoy wrote to the Senate of his wish to place his ten-year-old stepson in the First Cadet Corps. The request was granted, and at Mikhail was enrolled on 30 December. Modeled on the "Knight academies" of West European states, Kheraskov received an excellent education in the humanities. In addition to active literary circles, theatrical performances were staged by students with the assistance of figures such as Alexander Sumarokov, who is credited with introducing classical theater to Russia. While some sources suggest that Kheraskov was already writing poetry during this period, other sources indicate that before the age of twenty he had not demonstrated any particular talents. In the Cadet Corps he studied the same subjects that he had studied at home, and judging by surviving documents, his academic performance was assessed as "mediocre." In 1749 he was promoted to corporal. Kheraskov completed his course of studies in 1751, and on 15 September he was commissioned as a podporuchik in the Ingrian Regiment.

Having served as an officer for about four years, Mikhail Kheraskov entered state service in 1755, and was enrolled in the Collegium of Commerce. However, in early 1756 he transferred to the recently founded Moscow University, where he was appointed collegiate assessor. In some way or another, he would remain affiliated with the university for the rest of his life.