SOURCE: Serman, Ilya. “The Eighteenth Century: Neoclassicism and the Enlightenment, 1730-90.” In The Cambridge History of Russian Literature, edited by Charles A. Moser, pp. 45-91. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

In this excerpt, Serman offers a brief assessment of Sumarokov's major works and his contribution to and place in the history of Russian letters.

Alexander Sumarokov (1717-77), unlike Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, came from the hereditary gentry and studied from 1732 to 1740 at the Cadet School for the Nobility, an elite training ground which prepared young aristocrats to enter government service, and principally military service.

While still at the Cadet School Sumarokov began writing verses, initially imitating Trediakovsky; later he became a disciple of Lomonosov's. Along with his literary ally, he went up against Trediakovsky in a competition involving the translation of the hundred-forty-third psalm (1743). Trediakovsky did his translation in trochaic meter, while Sumarokov and Lomonosov used iambs for theirs...