A contemporary of Lomonósoff, SUMARÓKOFF (1717-1777,) who was described in those years as a “Russian Racine,” must also be mentioned in this place. He belonged to the higher nobility, and had received an entirely French education. His dramas, of which he wrote a great number, were entirely imitated from the French pseudo-classical school; but he contributed very much, as will be seen from a subsequent chapter, to the development of the Russian theatre. Sumarókoff wrote also lyrical verses, elegies, and satires--all of no great importance; but the remarkably good style of his letters, free of the Slavonic archaisms, which were habitual at that time, deserves to be mentioned. THE TIMES OF CATHERINE II. With Catherine II., who reigned from 1752 till 1796, commenced a new era in Russian literature. It began to shake off its previous dulness, and although the Russian writers continued to imitate French models--chiefly pseudo-classical--they began also to introduce into their writings various subjects taken from direct observation of Russian life. There is, altogether, a frivolous youthfulness in the literature of the first years of Catherine’s reign, when the Empress, being yet full of progressive ideas borrowed from her intercourse with French philosophers, composed--basing it on Montesquieu--her remarkable _Instruction_ (_Nakáz_) to the deputies she convoked; wrote several comedies, in which she ridiculed the old-fashioned representatives of Russian nobility; and edited a monthly review in which she entered into controversy both with some ultra-conservative writers and with the more advanced young reformers. An academy of belles-lettres was founded, and Princess VORONTSÓVA-DÁSHKOVA (1743-1819)--who had aided Catherine II. in her _coup d’état_ against her husband, Peter III., and in taking possession of the throne--was nominated president of the Academy of Sciences. She assisted the Academy with real earnestness in compiling a dictionary of the Russian language, and she also edited a review which left a mark in Russian literature; while her memoirs, written in French (_Mon Histoire_) are a very valuable, though not always impartial, historical document.[6] Altogether there began at that time quite a literary movement, which produced a remarkable poet, DERZHÁVIN (1743-1816); the writer of comedies, VON WÍZIN (1745-1792); the first philosopher, NÓVIKOFF (1742-1818); and a political writer, RADÍSCHFEF(1749-1802).