Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov

• Born: November 25, 1717
• Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Russia
• Died: October 12, 1777
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Other Literary Forms

Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov is by common consent the first full-fledged representative of Russian classicism. Consciously assuming the role of Russia’s Jean Racine, Molière, Jean de La Fontaine, and Nicolas Boileau all in one, Sumarokov wrote prolifically in all the literary genres fashionable for French neoclassicism: tragedies, comedies, pastorals, lyrics, odes, satires, fables, epistles, elegies, heroides, sonnets, songs, ballads, rondos, madrigals, epigrams, and inscriptions. A complete ten-volume collection of his works was first published in Moscow, Polnoe sobranie vsekh sochineniy v stikhakh i proze (1781-1787). A more recent collection of his works in verse, Izbrannye proizvedeniya, was published in Leningrad by the Library of the Poet in 1953. A second edition was published by the Library of the Poet in 1957.

Most of Sumarokov’s literary work is in verse, with the exception of his comedies, which in themselves represent a break from the true classical tradition inasmuch as tragedy was the genre most highly valued by the classicists. The higher, more solemn verse forms Sumarokov wrote in the “lofty style,” using Alexandrine meter adapted to Russian in a close imitation of French neoclassical poetry. In contrast, Sumarokov’s numerous fables have a more open Russian form without a fixed stanza or rhyme scheme, in the manner of the free verse of La Fontaine’s fables. Sumarokov’s songs show still greater variety of form, reflecting in part his admiration for seventeenth century German verse, which he himself translated into Russian.

In competing with his rival, Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov, Sumarokov composed more than eighty religious and solemn odes along with numerous fervent dithyrambs, many of which were addressed to Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Sumarokov’s idol, Peter the Great. In these odes, as well as those addressed to Catherine the Great, Sumarokov portrays not realistic images of the imperial figures, but ideals of the benevolent, enlightened despot in true classical fashion. For example, in “An Ode to the Sovereign Empress Catherine II on the Day of Her Birth, April 21, 1768,” Sumarokov extols her virtue as “Mother to all Russia’s children,” while in an earlier ode in honor of her name day, he praises her wisdom and beauty, likening her to a “lily of Paradise.” This ideal image was later mocked by the younger generation of writers because of its incongruity with Catherine’s real personality, which gradually revealed itself to the public eye. Nevertheless, the didactic tone and humble adulation of Sumarokov’s odes represent the dominant spirit of Russian classical poetry.

Sumarokov’s satires, which belong to the “low style” of verse, often ridiculed, in typical Horatian fashion, human weaknesses and vices such as false pride, idleness, ignorance, and rascality, and were devoted to the portrayal of numerous swindlers, dandies, misers, gluttons, and ignoramuses. Other satires rebuked the dandified young aristocrats of the day, who flaunted their Parisian manners and language but who could not speak proper Russian—a theme that was to become prominent in many nineteenth century works.

Achievements

Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov was not only a prolific and innovative writer but also one of Russia’s first theoreticians of literature. His “Epistle on the Art of Poetry,” which espoused a “doctrine of genres,” secured a permanent place for Sumarokov among the pages of Russian literary criticism. In 1759, Sumarokov founded a literary periodical Trudolyubivoya pchela (industrious bee), in which he published articles on the history of Russia, philosophy, political economy, and the Russian language. Although Sumarokov’s works are somewhat imitative in nature, lacking great innovative genius, his contribution to eighteenth century Russian letters was enormous, and he is remembered for the distinctness of his pictures of local life, his pride in Russian history, his humanitarian ideas, and his intensity of feeling, which permeates most of his works.

Biography

Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov was born in St. Petersburg on November 25, 1717. Of noble descent, Sumarokov was the son of a St. Petersburg military man who was reared in the tradition of the Petrine epoch, with an acute consciousness of the family’s high social standing and a strong desire to maintain it. Being a sufficiently wealthy nobleman of the old order, Sumarokov’s father owned six estates with approximately 1,670 serfs; he eventually transferred from active military duty to St. Petersburg, where he held a prominent place in civilian life.

At the age of fourteen, young Sumarokov, along with other children of high-ranking nobility, entered the then recently opened school for the Gentlemen’s Cadet Corps of the Land Forces in St. Petersburg. At this academy, he received a diverse education that included the French classics. Of great significance for Sumarokov’s future literary career as a dramatist was his participation in and enthusiastic support of the amateur theatrical interludes, performed by pupils of the Cadet Corps for audiences from the royal court. For these occasions, Sumarokov, along with other talented poets and budding actors, composed poetry and dramatic pieces, imitating the models of contemporary French poetry to which they had been introduced. As novices, they all (including Sumarokov) followed the working rules of the newly emerging Russian classicism, first developed by Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, who was at that time a leading writer and theoretician, enjoying great popularity, and with whom Sumarokov was later to quarrel.

Although Sumarokov wrote verses and tragedies while at the Cadet School, he did not immediately embark on a full-fledged career as a writer and dramatist on completion of his education. At that time, there was in Russia’s capital no theater specifically for Russian playwrights and Russian actors; while theatrical performances were the chief source of entertainment for the court during the reign of Anna Ivanovna (1730-1740), these performances usually consisted of Italian, French, and German plays, and ballets and operas performed by dramatic companies from abroad in a room equipped for the theater in the newly built Winter Palace. Given such limitations, it is not surprising that Sumarokov first chose to pursue a military career. In 1740, when Sumarokov finished the Corps, he was graduated as an adjutant to the vice counselor, Count M. G. Golovkin, who had become one of the most eminent magnates by the end of the reign of Anne I. Following Golovkin’s death, coinciding with the ascension to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741), Sumarokov’s fate hardly changed, as he soon became an adjutant to Elizabeth’s favorite, A. G. Razumovskiy, and served in that capacity for more than a decade.

Carrying on her father’s keen interest in the theater, Empress Elizabeth (Peter the Great’s daughter) forced the members of her court to attend theatrical events. A successful performance of Sumarokov’s first tragedy, Khorev, proved to be a turning point in his life, drawing the favorable attention and admiration of the empress herself and firmly establishing his reputation as a dramatist. In 1756, this notable patroness of the theater sent an official decree to the senate, announcing the establishment of a Russian theater for the performance of tragedies and comedies in the Golovinskiy stone house on Vasilevskiy Island near the Cadet House. Sumarokov, who by then had already produced three more tragedies (including Gamlet), was appointed the director of this new theater’s first company, consisting exclusively of Russian actors, brought to St. Petersburg by Elizabeth I from Jaroslav and headed by the famous Russian merchant actor, Fyodor Grigorievich Volkov.

From the onset, Sumarokov’s career as theater director was tenuous. The initial assistance allocated for the management of the theater was far from sufficient, threatening the company with financial disaster. Sumarokov was continually forced to lodge complaints about the lack of funds. Only after great difficulties did he finally succeed in having the theater come under the financial protectorate of the court. As a result, the Russian theater found itself in a position of submission to court control. Indeed, the management of the theater fell into the hands of the imperial procurator, a German by the name of K. Sivers, who was indifferent to its fate. A writer and dramatist of high integrity, Sumarokov could not help but be greatly incensed at this bureaucratic interference, and as a sign of protest, he offered his resignation, which, in 1761, was unceremoniously accepted. From this date, Sumarokov had no direct relation to the theater’s management but was allowed to continue his association with the company in the capacity of playwright. In spite of his quarrelsome, somewhat overbearing personality, his service to the struggling theater was enormous: It was largely because of his efforts in the face of court opposition that the first Russian theater survived.

Soon after his retirement as theater director, Sumarokov migrated to Moscow, where he occupied himself almost solely with literary activity, writing his last two tragedies, Dimitri the Imposter and Mstislav. This activity also included a zealous correspondence directed at Catherine II (1762-1796), whose ear he allegedly deafened with complaints about excessive censorship and the lack of official support for the theater. Because of his annoying behavior and sometimes excessive idealism, he soon lost favor with the Empress. Catherine II eventually commanded him to cease writing to her.

As noted above, Sumarokov was generally considered to be an irascible and disagreeable man whose excessive egotism caused him to quarrel constantly with many of his rivals, Trediakovskiy and Lomonosov in particular. He even quarreled with the governor of Moscow, P. S. Saltykov, and ultimately died in abject poverty, a neglected and rejected man.

Analysis

Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov’s prominence in the literary world of his time was a product not only of his dramatic successes but also of two well-known “Epistles,” in which he established certain rules for Russian literature and for Russian as a literary language. Any in-depth analysis of Sumarokov’s dramaturgy must consider the rules that he first set down as the basis for his subsequent plays. Sumarokov’s “Epistle on Art” proposes a doctrine of genres, classifying each kind of poetry (or prose) and its appropriate style according to the subject matter treated. Accordingly, all elements that contradict the nature of any specific genre must be eliminated. The poet must be selective: A tragedy cannot be marred by elements contradictory to the simple tragic ideal; the pastoral must employ the most natural kind of poetry to depict the plight of a shepherdess, while the elegy ought to treat the torturous moments of love or the sorrow of the heart.

Sumarokov’s doctrine of genres is based on the notion that art must “mirror the universe” and depict the “simplicity of essential nature.” He strictly adheres to the classical conception of the poet’s duty to convey a certain order in the apparent chaos of the universe. This view of art typifies the belief of classical aestheticians, that at the core of the universe there exist certain essential principles that emanate from divine life. It is these principles that govern the hearts of human beings and must be conveyed by the poet.

Both Sumarokov’s theory of literature and his works in verse grew out of his love for the great French writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries— Voltaire, Pierre Corneille, Racine, Boileau—and for the principles derived from classical drama. Following the rules already established by French classicism, Sumarokov recognized tragedy as the most favored genre, for it had been handed down to the contemporary world by the great ancient Greek writers such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. In a tragedy, simplicity and unity must be maintained so that the tragic tone is not broken by the intrusion of comic effects. Above all, Sumarokov proposes the Corneillian conflict between reason and the passions as the pivotal point of the tragedy, with the obvious outcome of the triumph of reason and duty over feelings and personal gain. Hence, the play’s happy ending for most of the characters presumably serves as a moral lesson to the audience. While two of his tragedies, Khorev and Dimitri the Imposter, do result in the deaths of the principal characters, such a fate is the inevitable destiny for all those who give full reign to self-centered instincts, subjugating others to their every tyrannical whim. Sumarokov also adopted Aristotle’s “pity” and “fear” as the springs of tragic emotion.

Perhaps most important, Sumarokov took from his French models the notion of the three unities: of time, place, and action. According to this formula, time in any tragedy must be limited so that the critical moment being represented on the stage more nearly corresponds to the short span of time of the actual performance. In order not to confuse or deceive the audience, only one fairly limited place (usually a palace) should be chosen so that the viewer need not make unreasonable mental and visual leaps—for example, from Moscow to Rome or from court to countryside. Last, irrelevant episodes or secondary plot lines must not actually take place on stage inasmuch as they would obscure the principal inner conflict of the main character. Any external or secondary events, such as riots, military battles, and so forth, must be reported by a secondary character such as a confidant or messenger in a conversation with the hero of the play.

All Sumarokov’s tragedies testify to the classic concept of character: Certain fixed personal qualities lead to an inevitable fate. As in the Greek tragedies, these specific qualities are consistently and uniformly revealed in both the speech and the action of Sumarokov’s tragic hero. In regard to subject matter, however, Sumarokov broke with the classic canons by not selecting subjects from the legends of ancient Greek or Roman history. With the exception of Gamlet, set in Denmark, and Aristona, set in Persia, his tragedies are based on legends from Russian history. While the names of several characters, such as Kij from Khorev and Mstislav from the play of that title, actually stem from the Russian chronicles, many names are merely invented to create a sense of the Slavic world. In fact, Sumarokov strives to present not the particular in history but the universal: the enlightened, patriotic nobleman or woman who voluntarily subordinates personal private passions to reason and duty, putting the good of all the people as a whole ahead of individual gain. In order not to obscure this ideal, Sumarokov seldom includes any significant degree of local or national color in his tragedies.

Sumarokov’s tragedies enjoyed great success during his lifetime. As William Brown points out in A History of Eighteenth Century Russian Literature (1980), Sumarokov was revered by lesser, classical Russian dramatists such as Mikhail Matveyevich and Vasily Ivanovich Maikov, whose attempts to invade their “master’s theatrical realm” fell short of the mark. Although imitative in nature, Sumarokov’s tragedies still remain, as Brown writes, “the best examples of this classical genre.” Moreover, but for the success of these tragedies, the Russian theater would have been far slower in coming to the cultural forefront of eighteenth century Russian society.

In stark contrast to his tragedies in verse, the far less classical nature of Sumarokov’s comedies often became the object of criticism from both his contemporaries and subsequent literary critics. In spite of the fact that he set down fundamental laws for writing comedy as well as tragedy, his own productions in this area do not strictly adhere to these laws. In the “Second Epistle,” Sumarokov states that above all, one must avoid amusement for its own sake, yet the majority of his comedies appear to many critics to be no more than popular farces, the sole intent of which is entertainment. Sumarokov himself declared that his own efforts in the realm of comedy were only mediocre. Still, the ground rules that he put forth for this genre played an important role in establishing the basis of Russian comedy. His statement, based on the classical concept of comedy, that “the function of comedy is by mockery to correct morals,” reflects the very essence of the comic spirit of such playwrights as Nikolai Gogol in the nineteenth century and Mikhail Bulgakov in the twentieth.

In prose, these comedies present as objects of derision the vices and vicious types already well known in the world of satire: pompous, French-speaking dandies; inhumane, corrupt judges; insipid country bumpkins; greedy usurers; jealous husbands; puffed-up pedants; and vulgar ignoramuses. Although these satiric types were not his invention, Sumarokov was the first Russian dramatist to introduce genuine Russian types who speak colloquial Russian, laced with choice proverbs and folk sayings. Many of his comic characters seem to be genuine products of the Russian countryside. In particular, Sumarokov’s obtuse, vegetating country squire became familiar to future Russian audiences in the works of Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin, Alexander Griboyedov, and Nikolai Gogol. In regard to the promotion of natural spoken Russian and Russian types, Sumarokov’s comedies made a substantial contribution to the development of Russian drama.

Only since the twentieth century has Sumarokov begun to be recognized as the founder of the modern Russian stage. It is now the consensus that Sumarokov’s plays, particularly his comedies, brought Russian literary language nearer to modern spoken Russian, avoiding the archaisms and biblical constructions for which his rival Lomonosov was famous. His introduction of classical tragedy to the Russian stage constitutes a significant contribution to the realm of Russian literature.

Khorev

Sumarokov’s first tragedy, Khorev, thoroughly attests his classical disposition. Based on a story from the legendary Russian past, the play centers on a feud between Zavolox, onetime Prince of Kiev, and a rival, Prince Kij. The feud evolves into a major conflict for the two principal characters: Khorev, Prince Kij’s son, falls in love with Osnelda, the daughter of his father’s enemy, who has been taken into captivity by Prince Kij during a raid on the ancient capital city. This irresolvable struggle between love and loyalty ultimately culminates in the death of the unfortunate couple, whose private feelings are cruelly subordinated to the greater concerns of state. Even though this tragedy concerns the remote past, the contemporary political environment of the 1740’s through the 1760’s may in part be represented in the dramatist’s plea to allow a foreigner to occupy the throne to ensure that peace and harmony exist without needless bloodshed. (Like Prince Zavolox from the play, Empress Elizabeth and Empress Catherine were of distant non-Slavic ancestry, causing some dissension among those of ancient Russian blood.)

Gamlet

No tragedy of Sumarokov has been more criticized than Gamlet, his second tragedy and his version of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (pr. c. 1600-1601), which reflects both his interest in William Shakespeare and his belief that a poet may alter any particularity of a given time or event to conform to the overriding rules of classicism. He therefore changed or eliminated many of the events and dramatis personae of Shakespeare’s play, which he knew chiefly through La Place’s French version as it appeared in 1746 and was first performed by the St. Petersburg Cadet Corps in 1750. In the opening scene of Sumarokov’s Gamlet, the Danish Prince Hamlet reveals his suspicions of his usurper uncle, Claudius, who, with the encouragement of the wicked Polonius, has murdered Hamlet’s father, the former Danish king, and now schemes to poison his wife Gertrude in order to marry Polonius’s daughter, Ophelia (Hamlet’s fiancé). The plot develops in a traditional classical manner with a confrontation between love and duty. Hamlet struggles to overcome his passion for Ophelia in order to do battle with Polonius and Claudius, in the hope of fully revealing their villainy. Similarly, putting duty before love, Ophelia threatens to renounce her love for Hamlet if he does not spare her father’s life.

The conflict happily resolves itself on stage with two pronouncements: Hamlet announces mutiny by the people, and a soldier arrives to announce Polonius’s suicide. The play ends not with the tragic deaths of Ophelia and then Hamlet (as in Shakespeare’s Hamlet), but with the preparations for their wedding and ascension to the Danish throne. The tragic ideal is underscored by the demise of those who would tyrannize others, putting private interests ahead of universal harmony and the welfare of their subjects. Sumarokov clearly takes significant liberties with Shakespeare’s plot to achieve this end.

In Gamlet, Sumarokov fully realizes the neoclassical treatment of character. As Brown points out, the principals engage in conversations with “secondary persons whose sole function is to listen to the utmost thoughts and intentions of the principals.” Sumarokov departs slightly from this tradition by having his principals further reveal their own character in brief soliloquies in which they recognize their own impotence or loathsomeness. For example, the tyrant and murderer Claudius, in a plea to God for grace and mercy, confesses that repentance is not compatible with his wicked and shameless nature: “I cannot find this longing within myself, filled as I am with all ungodly passions. No spark of goodness is in my conscience. How can I conceive a way to bring about my repentance?”

Through the character of Ophelia, Sumarokov expresses his most cherished ideal of a person in conflict with mortal weaknesses. Ophelia protests Claudius’s villainous ways proclaiming that a king should be a divinely inspired ruler who is benevolent toward his people; otherwise, he will act as a mere mortal with barbaric instincts and a criminal nature. Sumarokov’s Gamlet, for the most part, cannot be judged as a mere imitation of Shakespeare’s play, for this eighteenth century classicist carefully reworked the principal characters in concert with the rules for a tragedy that he established in his “Epistle on Art.” In spite of the fact that Sumarokov has been severely criticized for his alteration of Shakespeare’s work, his Gamlet enjoyed great popularity on the Russian stage in the eighteenth century.

Dimitri the Imposter

The distinct antidespotic trend that is evident throughout all Sumarokov’s tragedies is the dominant theme in his next to last and perhaps best-known play, Dimitri the Imposter. Alexander Pushkin, in his later play on the same historical period, Boris Godunov (1824-1825; English translation, 1918), presented the full range of dramatic events of the Time of Troubles, but Sumarokov’s tragedy, in keeping with the canons of classicism, concentrates on the tragic nature of the central character, Dimitri, who, in Brown’s words, “represents the ultimate claim to autocracy, that the monarch possesses his subjects soul and body.” As is true for most of Sumarokov’s dramatis personae, Dimitri embodies a single character trait that governs all of his actions. Some “evil fury” inhabits his soul and is an unchangeable aspect of his personality. This is revealed in several soliloquies in the form of a vain drive to place himself on an equal level with God in order to control completely the lives of others: “Before me you are but a shadow and a cobweb. All that is God’s is mine.”

The plot line is fabricated to expose fully Dimitri’s fated character and revolves around a love triangle between the tyrant himself and two nonhistorical characters: Ksenija, Šuskij’s daughter, and her faithful fiancé, Prince Georgij. As in all Sumarokov’s tragedies, passion is stilled and duty obeyed. Georgij and Ksenija must sacrifice their love for the lives of others and their cherished land. In the final act, Dimitri’s design on Ksenija is thwarted by the threat of a popular uprising, which occurs offstage. Dimitri’s character remains consistent to the very end; rather than be subdued by the approaching mob, heard in the wings, Dimitri dramatically takes his own life with a dagger as he utters one last defiant curse on all those left behind: “Ah, if only the whole universe might perish with me.”

In conjunction with the classical concept of unity and simplicity, all the playwright’s secondary dramatis personae are simply drawn, conforming to two distinct categories: The virtuous and the villainous. In this way, the didactic strain of the play is not in the least obstructed or confused. No attempt is made to present a realistic portrayal of these characters or the actual historical epoch. In the image of Ksenija, the exalted traits of womanhood are extolled: virtue, beauty, and fidelity. The character of Georgij serves as a mere abstraction of Sumarokov’s own liberalism: “Am I not then my own? My heart, blood, soul and mind—are these not my possessions?” Similarly, Prince Šuskij, an actual historical personage, becomes the mouthpiece for Sumarokov’s progressive conception of the monarchy as the servant of the people—a view he shared with members of the popular political Panin group, whose ideals are echoed in Šuskij’s naïve proclamation: “He is a greater man who will lay down his life and perish for his people.”

Bibliography

Brown, William Edward. A History of Eighteenth Century Russian Literature. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1980. Brown examines Sumarokov within his broader discussion of eighteenth century Russian literature.

Levitt, Marcus C. “The Illegal Staging of Sumarokov’s Sinav i Truvor in 1770 and the Problem of Authorial Status in Eighteenth Century Russia.” Slavic and East European Journal 43, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 299-323. The author examines the illegal staging of one of Sumarokov’s plays, focusing on the author’s defense strategies.

Levitt, Marcus C. “Russianized Hamlet: Text and Contexts.” Slavic and East European Journal 38, no. 2 (Summer, 1994): 319. Levitt examines the meaning and context of Sumarokov’s Gamlet, which was considerably changed, as well as the source materials that Sumarokov probably used in developing his play.

Nebel, Henry M., Jr. Selected Aesthetic Works of Sumarokov and Karamazin. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982. Nebel critiques and presents translations of some of Sumarokov’s works as well as some of those of Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin, historian and novelist who reformed the literary language.

Sheidley, William E. “Hamlets and Hierarchy.” Peace Review 11, no. 2 (June, 1999): 243-249. Sheidley examines the portrayal of official hierarchies as injust, inadequate, or incoherent in literature, especially Sumarokov’s version of Hamlet. Sumarokov’s portrayal of the fall of a selfish and corrupt ruler shows his belief in a monarchy that concerns itself with the welfare of its subjects.