Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (; – ) 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 (, 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.
Biography
Early life
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.Кулакова, 1947, с. 320. 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.
Moscow University 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.
As collegiate assessor, Kheraskov was tasked with the supervision (and surveillance) of university students. In 1756, Kheraskov took on additional responsibilities as head of the university library and director of the university theater. On 24 February 1757, he was admitted to the University Conference (analogous to the modern academic council), and became a trustee of the university printing house. In order to increase the number of publications, Kheraskov contacted the academician Gerhard Friedrich Müller, who in 1754 founded the periodical Monthly Essays, the first monthly popular science and literary journal in Russia. Kheraskov became a regular contributor to Monthly Essays, and he and Miller exchanged publications and frequently corresponded. As a form of encouragement, the curator and founder of Moscow University, Ivan Shuvalov, appointed Kheraskov to supervise the Moscow Synodal Printing Office.
Kheraskov's activities were extremely diverse: in 1759 he became a supervisor of the mineralogical cabinet, and in 1761 he was made head director over Russian actors in Moscow. He was also responsible for contracting Italian singers. Kheraskov not only directed, but also played a role in the successful debut of his tragedy, The Venetian Nun, reviews of which appeared even in German journals. In 1761 he was awarded the rank of Court Councillor. In June 1761 he served as acting director of the university because of a leave of absence by the appointed director, Ivan Ivanovich Melissino. Later that year, Kheraskov staged a heroic comedy in verse entitled The Infidel, in which he showcased his religious zeal. This production was the last for the university theater.
Kheraskov also organized and managed a number of publications that were published by the university printing house. This included Useful Entertainment (1760-1762), Free Time (1763), Harmless Exercises (1763), and Good Intentions (1764). Kheraskov's circle included a number of young writers (the majority poets) whose writings were featured in these and other university publications. Among them was Ippolit Fyodorovich Bogdanovich, whom Kheraskov enrolled in the university gymnasium invited to lodge with him. In 1762 he published Collection of the Best Works for the Dissemination of Knowledge and to the Work of Pleasure, or a Mixed Library of Various Physical, Economic, and Even Manufactured and Commercial Things. Professor Johann Gotfried Reichel edited Collection, whose material consisted of translations made by students, including those by the future Russian playwright Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin.
In 1760 Kheraskov married Elizabeth Vasilevna Nerovnaya, who also wrote poetry; their home became a recognized center for literature in Moscow.
Career in Moscow and St. Petersburg In January 1762, Kheraskov composed an ode in honor of the newly crowned Emperor Peter III. Six months later, after the Palace Coup of July 1762, he composed one for Catherine the Great. For the rest of his life, on behalf of either himself or Moscow University, Kheraskov would compose poems almost annually dedicated to the empress. He also wrote poems dedicated to Catherine's favorites. A year earlier, in 1761, he published "On Humanity", which he dedicated to Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova. In 1762, he dedicated a collection entitled New Odes to her. At the end of 1762, Kheraskov was appointed to a committee to organize a celebration to mark the anniversary of Catherine's coronation. Along with Fyodor Volkov, a celebrated Russian actor, and Sumarokov, he prepared "Triumphant Minerva", a three-day pageant in the style of the Carnival of Venice that took place in the summer of 1763. Additionally, he wrote "Poems for the Great Masquerade" to mark the occasion.
On 13 June 1763 Mikhail was named Director of Moscow University and promoted to the civil rank of Collegiate Councillor. At that time, the situation at the university was growing tense as a result of a dispute between the curator and Kheraskov. As Reichel wrote to Miller in St. Petersburg:The new director is at odds with the curator, with whom it appears the Chancellery holds the final word. Scholarship, it seems, is something insignificant.Over the years, the conflict between the curator (Vasily Adodurov), Kheraskov and the university professors reached a boiling point. In May 1765, Adodurov, while examining the affairs of the university gymnasium, questioned the competency and teaching ability of a German law professor named Philipp Dilthey. Dilthey was known for his heavy drinking, crude language, and frequent absences. Without consulting Kheraskov, Adodurov wrote to Catherine and arranged for his dismissal. Kheraskov insisted that as director, he was in charge of the hiring and dismissal of professors. Dilthey was reinstated a year later. Adding to the rift between Kheraskov and Adodurov were the latter's attempts to establish a new university framework, which called for greater censorship of professors and strict discipline of students.
Another problem the university faced was related to the language of instruction. Almost the entire faculty consisted of Germans who spoke Russian only with difficulty, if at all. Most lectures were delivered in German, French, and especially Latin, the mastery of which the German professors considered the "goal of the university and basis of all the Sciences." One of the Russian professors, Nikolay Popovsky, was even reprimanded in 1758 for delivering lectures in Russian. In May and June 1767, while traveling with Catherine and her court on the Volga River, Kheraskov appealed directly to Catherine, and in 1768, professors were permitted to speak Russian in the classroom. Catherine considered it especially important that jurisprudence should be taught in Russian.
Later in 1767, the Russian edition of the Encyclopédie was issued in three parts, for which Kheraskov had translated three articles, "Magic", "Narration", and "Nature". In 1768, Kheraskov introduced the preliminary censorship of public university speeches and lectures after the speeches of Ivan Andreyevich Tretyakov were deemed to contain "dubious and daring expressions". Tretyakov was a graduate of the University of Glasgow, where, along with fellow Moscow University professor Semyon Efimovich Desnitsky, he had studied directly under Adam Smith. His lectures and books were considered to be largely verbatim transcriptions of Smith's lectures, and thus disseminated ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment.