The compass of Russian literature extended itself during the course of Alexander’s reign, or rather from A.D. 1800 to 1822, with a most remarkable rapidity.  In the year 1787 the number of books written in the Old Slavonic and Russian dialects, did not exceed 4000;[31] before 1820 twice that number was counted; the year 1820 alone produced 3400 works, 800 of them translations from the French, 483 from the German, and more than 100 from the English.  Sopikof, in his bibliographical essay, enumerates the titles of 13,240 Russian and Slavonic books, printed in Russia from A.D. 1552 to 1823.  But at this time literature seems to have reached its height in respect to productiveness; and sunk again with a still greater rapidity, probably in consequence of the political measures of the government.  The year 1824 produced only 264 Russian works.  The yearly average of literary productions, original and translated, from 1800 to that time, is about 300 to 400.  This number perhaps will not strike the reader as so very small, if he is informed that in the whole eighteenth century only 1000 works were printed.  Three hundred and fifty living authors were enumerated in the year 1822; mostly belonging to the nobility, and only one eighth part to the clergy.  Their literary activity towards the end of this period, and at the commencement of the next, was in a great measure confined to works of fiction; especially novels end lyrical poetry.  But at this time a deeper interest in their national history began to be awakened.  This department indeed had never been entirely neglected; and more than 10,000 manuscripts, unopened and unexamined, lay scattered throughout the imperial and monastic libraries.

Nicholas Karamzin, from the commencement of whose influence this period of Russian literature is in general dated, was born A.D. 1765.  He was educated in the house of a German professor at Moscow.  In spite of the early development of his literary propensities, he entered the military service, which was then considered as the most honourable in Russia.  After two years spent in travelling through Europe, he opened his literary career with the publication of a periodical work called the Moscow Journal, which exercised a decidedly favourable influence on Russian literature; although those productions of Karamzin himself, which first appeared in this journal, evidently bear the stamp of the author’s youth.  Both in his prose writings and in his scattered lyrical poems, at this period, there is a certain dulcet sentimentality, behind which we look in vain for energetic or true poetic thoughts.  He showed more maturity in his second periodical, called the European Messenger; where political and moral subjects occupied his pen.  But his principal reputation rests upon his History of the Russian Empire.  In composing this work, he was greatly favoured by the government; all the archives were opened to him; all documents delivered into his hands; and when it was completed, rewards and gratuities of every description were heaped upon the author with imperial munificence, and continued to his widow and children after his decease in 1826. [32]