Considered "the father of
Russian poetry", Kantemir used his
classical education to assist
Peter the Great's
programme of modernizing and westernizing Russian culture. His most noticeable effort in this regard is his
Petrida, an unfinished
epic glorifying the emperor. He produced a
tract on old Russian
versification in 1744 and numerous
odes and
fables. His use of
gallic rhyme schemes can make his work seem antiquated and awkward to modern readers. He edited his father's
History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire in England and wrote a biography and bibliography of his father which later accompanied its 1756 edition. His 1742
Letters on Nature and Man (
O Prirode i Cheloveke) was a philosophical work. He is best remembered for his
satires in the manner of
Juvenal, including
To My Mind: On Those Who Blame Education and
On the Envy and Pride of Evil-Minded Courtiers, which were among the first such works in the Russian language. Kantemir translated
Horace and
Anacreon into Russian, as well as
Algarotti's
Dialogues on Light and Colors. He also translated
De Fontenelle's
Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, in 1730. When Kantemir's teacher, Christopher Gross, asked the academy to publish the translation, the responsible manager of the chancellery,
Johann Daniel Schumacher, wanted to first get permission from the government and the Holy Synod. Correspondence regarding the matter dragged on until 1738, when permission to publish was finally given, but the book was not published until 1740. Kantemir's own works were translated into
French by the
Abbé Guasco, who also penned his biography. ==Notes==