Alexander Sumarakov was born in 1717 into a family of Muscovite gentry. He was born in
Villmanstrand (now Lappeenranta) in Swedish-ruled Finland, where his father was most likely serving in the
Great Northern War against Sweden. Sumarokov was educated at the Cadet School in
Saint Petersburg, where he became closely familiar with French learning. Neither an aristocratic dilettante like
Antiokh Kantemir nor a learned professor like
Vasily Trediakovsky or
Mikhail Lomonosov, he was the first gentleman in
Russia to choose the profession of letters. His pursuits did not undermine his position in the family; indeed, his grandson was made a count and, when the Sumarokov family became extinct a century later, the title eventually passed to Prince
Felix Yusupov, who also held the title of Count Sumarokov-Elston. Sumarokov wrote much and regularly, chiefly in those literary genres neglected by Lomonosov. His principal importance rests in his plays, among which
Khorev (1749) is regarded as the first regular Russian drama. He ran the first permanent public theatre in the Russian capital, where he worked with the likes of
Fyodor Volkov and
Ivan Dmitrevsky. His plays were based on the subjects taken from Russian history (
Dmitry Samozvanets), proto-Russian
legends (
Khorev) or on
Shakespearean plots (
Makbet,
Hamlet). In his evaluation of Sumarokov's plays, literary historian
D. S. Mirsky writes: Sumarokov also wrote non-dramatic works. He was the first Russian author to write
fables, a genre which subsequently flourished in Russia. His satires, in which he sometimes imitates the style of popular poetry, are described by Mirsky as "racy and witty attacks against the government clerks and officers of law." He wrote love songs intended for popular consumption, which brought him fame and made him chief among a group of songwriting poets who followed him. Mirsky praises Sumarokov's songs for their "prodigious metrical inventiveness (which was not so much as imitated by any of his successors) and a genuine gift of melody." Mirsky describes the playwright's personality as follows: His daughter
Ekaterina, an 18th-century poet, is often considered to be the first Russian woman writer, as she, together with and were the first women to see their works printed in Russian journals. ==Opera libretti==