Nikolay Karamzin

Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766–1826), born near Simbirsk, was the leading figure of Russian sentimentalism. His Letters of a Russian Traveller (1791–92) and the tale Poor Liza (1792) set a new, polished prose style, and his History of the Russian State (begun 1803, published from 1818) made him a national writer. Bowring called him “the most successful and the most popular” of Russia’s living writers.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.