Poet, literary theorist, religious reformer, and educator, Feofan Prokopovich was indisputably one of the preeminent figures of Peter the Great's turbulent era of reform and modernization and an outstanding representative of the age of transition. He was active in the political sphere, both justifying and facilitating Peter's secularization of the state, thereby contributing to a drastic diminution of ecclesiastical power in Russia. He was equally involved in cultural life, acting as a mediator between Western and Russian learning. In his capacity as poet and critic, he was instrumental in bridging the gulf between seventeenth-century baroque aesthetics and eighteenth-century classicism. Prokopovich was also a man thoroughly enmeshed in contradiction and controversy. On the one hand, he filled the humane position of patron to such notable eighteenth-century figures as Mikhail Lomonosov, Antiokh Kantemir, and Vasilli Tatishchev, while on the other, he supported and rationalized Peter's execution of his son, the...