Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin

Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin (born April 3 [April 14, New Style], 1744/45, Moscow, Russia—died December 1 [December 12], 1792, St. Petersburg) was a playwright who satirized the cultural pretensions and privileged coarseness of the nobility; he is considered his nation’s foremost 18th-century dramatist.

Fonvizin was educated at the University of Moscow and worked as a government translator until 1769. His wit and his knowledge of French and German classics made him a favourite in the enlightened circles of the court of Catherine the Great. In 1769 he became secretary to the liberal count Nikita Ivanovich Panin, an advocate of constitutionalism. Fonvizin’s first important comedy, Brigadir (written 1766–69, published 1783; “Brigadier”), ridiculed the contemporary fashion of aping French manners and speech—or rather of aping them incorrectly. His masterpiece, Nedorosl (published 1783; “The Minor”), is considered the first truly Russian drama. It deals with a gentry family so ignorant and brutish that they survive only through the industry of their ill-treated serfs. The plot centres on the tyrannical mother’s attempts to educate her spoiled and loutish son for the civil service and to marry him to an heiress. The characters are portrayed with a realism unknown at the time, and the play is still performed. In 1783 Fonvizin sharply criticized the Russian aristocracy in a tract on political reform and fell out of favour with Catherine. Thereafter, his works were banned, and his last years were spent in travel.