Poor Liza: Novels

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin 1766 - 1826 - a prominent Russian writer, historian. The son of a nobleman from Simbirsk, who received education in private boarding schools, Karamzin entered history as an innovator and reformer of the Russian language. He liberated... his native speech from the outdated grandiloquent style and introduced new words borrowed from foreign languages, such as impression, influence, epoch, scene, harmony, catastrophe, futurity, and many others. Karamzin was the first to prioritize feelings over cold reason, teachings, and morals, as dictated by the traditions of the prevailing classicism in literature. Opening the era of Russian sentimentalism, he granted readers the opportunity to empathize, bringing them closer to the described heroes. Such is his famous tale Poor Liza: a sentimental story of love between a peasant girl and a nobleman. Karamzin took the plot from European love novels but gave it authenticity by describing a real place in Moscow and providing an unexpected tragic ending for literature of that time, as it was published in 1792. The illusion of documentary veracity was so strong that readers named the pond at the Simonov Monastery Liza's pond, mistaking the fictional story for reality. Of course, first and foremost, Karamzin is known as the author of the multivolume work History of the Russian State. He worked on it for 22 years, until the end of his life, aiming to select, animate, and color, making domestic history something attractive, powerful, worthy of attention not only from Russians but also from foreigners; indeed, the first edition of the 8 volumes of the History sold out in a month. Karamzin’s interest in history arose during the creation of the story Marfa the Townswoman, or The Conquest of Novgorod - a tale of the confrontation between the Moscow prince and the original republic, a bloody drama of a free city subdued by autocracy and the role of a woman in this political struggle. This woman is Marfa Boretskaya, a wealthy boyar and one of the leaders of the opposition. Officially, she was not the townswoman ruler of the city; this nickname was a mockery by the Muscovites of Novgorod's self-governance. The tale was published in 1803.