No form of poetry has found more favour in Russia than the historical novel.  It was cultivated to some extent at this time; but the flower of this branch falls more properly within the following period.  A voluminous novel, entitled Bursak by B. Nareshnoi, belonged to another species.  It was written with a good deal of harmless humour, somewhat in the style of Le Sage’s Gil Blas.  It narrated the history of a Bursarian, or scholar of one of the monastic seminaries in Malo-Russia; and is full of adventures, lively descriptions of manners, and amusing incidents.[36]

The literature of translations continued to occupy very many pens.  Here must be mentioned:  Gnjeditch’s version of the Iliad; Merzljakof’s translation of Tasso’s Jerusalem; Wojeikof’s AEneid; Martynof’s translation of several ancient classics, etc.

To foreigners, the travels of the Russians by sea and land offer the most interesting and instructive part of their literature.  The most distinguished of their well known expeditions have indeed been conducted by Germans, as Krusenstern, Kotzebue, Bellinghausen, Wrangel; some however by Russians, as Golovnin, Lazaref, and others; and the results of all of them contribute to the honour of Russia, and are laid up in the temple of her literature.  The regions of Malo-Russia, the Caucasus, and Taurida, of which comparatively little was known, were explored by Muraviev-Apostol, Glinka, Bronefsky, and others; and described by them in valuable volumes.  An account of China by Timkofsky, was translated in 1827 into the English language.  The works of the monk Hyacinth Bitchourin, head of the Russian ecclesiastical mission at Pekin, published in 1828-32, are of great importance for the knowledge of China, Thibet, and the country of the Mongols.[37] The great patriot and protector of science, Romyanzof, whose name is known throughout the civilized world, caused Abalghasi’s Historia Mongolorum et Tartarorum to be printed in 1825, under the special care of the distinguished German oriental scholar Frahn.  The publication of the Mongol work. History of the Eastern Mongols and their Princes, written by Ssanang Ssetzen, with a German translation and illustrations and remarks by J.J.  Schmidt, although no Russian work, may be mentioned here; as it was only made possible by Russian means, and the support of the emperor.  The same author, known to the literary world by his learned Researches in Eastern Asia, translated also the Gospels into the Mongol and Kalmuk languages for the Russian Bible Society.  A Mongol Grammar was prepared by him in 1828, and the Mongol-German-Russian Dictionary was announced in 1834.  A Mongol-Russian Dictionary had been previously published by Igumnof of Irkutzk.  Volkof composed a Tartar Dictionary, an earlier one having been written by Giganof in 1804.  For the study of the Armenian, numerous opportunities are presented; the Armenian archimandrite Seraphim published in 1819