Denis Fonvizin - Wikipedia Denis Fonvizin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (November 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated page}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. Denis Fonvizin Born Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin (1745-04-14)April 14, 1745 Moscow, Russian Empire Died December 12, 1792(1792-12-12) (aged 47) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire Resting place Lazarevskoe Cemetery, Saint Petersburg Occupation Writer, playwright, translator Nationality Russian Alma mater Imperial Moscow University Spouse Ekaterina Ivanovna Rogovikova (1774—1792) Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin (Russian: Денис Иванович Фонвизин; 14 April [O.S. 3 April] 1745—12 December [O.S. 1 December] 1792) was a playwright and writer of the Russian Enlightenment, one of the founders of literary comedy in Russia. His main works are two satirical comedies, one of them Young ignoramus, which mock contemporary Russian gentry and are still staged today. Contents 1 Life 2 Works and influence 3 Notes 4 References Life[edit] Denis Fonvizin was born in Moscow into a noble Russian Orthodox family, the first of eight children.[1][2][3] His mother Ekaterina Vasilievna Fonvizina (née Dmitrieva-Mamonova) (born 1718) belonged to the Smolensk Rurik branch on her father's side and to the Grushetsky family on her mother's side; she was a cousin-niece of Tsaritsa Agafya Grushetskaya and an aunt to Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov who was famously a lover of Catherine the Great.[4][5] His father Ivan Andreevich Fonvizin (1705—1785) started as an army officer, then served in the Collegium of Accounting, becoming a State Councillor in 1783.[2][3] His ancestor baron Berndt von Wiesen belonged to the Livonian Order, was captured during the Livonian War and became a naturalized Russian citizen; his descendants russified, the family name transformed with years, but it was Ivan Andreevich who started writing it as Fonvizin.[6][7] Denis Fonvizin received good education at the Imperial Moscow University and very early began writing and translating. He entered the civil service, becoming secretary to Count Nikita Panin, one of the great noblemen of Catherine the Great's reign. Because of Panin's protection, Fonvizin was able to write critical plays without fear of being arrested, and, in the late 1760s, he brought out the first of his two famous comedies, The Brigadier-General. A man of means, he was always a dilettante rather than a professional author, though he became prominent in literary and intellectual circles. In 1777-78 he traveled abroad, the principal aim of his journey being the medical faculty of Montpellier. He described his voyage in his Letters from France — one of the most elegant specimens of the prose of the period, and the most striking document of that anti-French nationalism which in the Russian elite of the time of Catherine went hand in hand with a complete dependence on French literary taste. In 1782 appeared Fonvizin's second and best comedy The Minor, which definitely classed him as the foremost of Russian playwrights. His last years were passed in constant suffering and traveling abroad for his health. He died in Saint Petersburg in 1792. Works and influence[edit] Fonvizin's reputation rests almost entirely on his two comedies, which are beyond doubt the most popular Russian plays before Aleksander Griboyedov's Woe from Wit. They are both in prose and adhere to the canons of classical comedy. Fonvizin's principal model, however, was not Molière, but the great Dano-Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg, whom he read in German, and some of whose plays he had translated. Both comedies are plays of social satire with definite axes to grind. The Brigadier-General is a satire against the fashionable French semi-education of the petits-maîtres. It is full of excellent fun, and though less serious than The Minor, it is better constructed. But The Minor, though imperfect in dramatic construction, is a more remarkable work and justly considered Fonvizin's masterpiece. The point of the satire in The Minor is directed against the brutish and selfish crudeness and barbarity of the uneducated country gentry. The central character, Mitrofanushka, is the accomplished type of vulgar and brutal selfishness, unredeemed by a single human feature — even his fondly doting mother gets nothing from him for her pains. The dialogue of these vicious characters (in contrast to the stilted language of the lovers and their virtuous uncles) is true to life and finely individualized; and they are all masterpieces of characterization — a worthy introduction to the great portrait gallery of Russian fiction. As a measure of its popularity, several expressions from The Minor have been turned into proverbs, and many authors (amongst whom Alexander Pushkin) regularly cite from this play, or at least hint to it by mentioning the characters' names[8] [9] [10]. Notes[edit] ^ Gary M. Hamburg (2016). Russia's Path toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500-1801 — New Haven: Yale University Press ISBN 978-0300113136 ^ a b Charles Arthur Moser (1979). Denis Fonvizin. — Boston: Twayne Publishers, pp. 11—12 ISBN 978-0805764024 ^ a b Pyotr Petrov (1991). The History of the Russian Nobility in Two Volumes. Volume 1. — Moscow : Sovremennik, pp. 309—310 ISBN 5-270-01515-3 ^ Velvet Book, XXX, p. 241 ^ Grushetsky coat of arms by All-Russian Armorials of Noble Houses of the Russian Empire. Part 2, June 30, 1798 (in Russian) ^ Von Wiesen coat of arms by All-Russian Armorials of Noble Houses of the Russian Empire. Part 3, January 19, 1799 (in Russian) ^ Fonvizin, Denis Ivanovich at the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian) ^ Alexander Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter, Chapter 1 and motto of Chapter III. ^ Pushkin, The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, motto ^ Pushkin, A Novel in Letters, Chapter VIII References[edit]  This article incorporates text from D.S. Mirsky's "A History of Russian Literature" (1926-27), a publication now in the public domain. Authority control BIBSYS: 90094018 BNE: XX1099711 BNF: cb124597488 (data) GND: 118692194 ISNI: 0000 0000 8368 0785 LCCN: n80158435 LNB: 000160647 NDL: 00521704 NKC: ola2003165530 NLK: KAC201502472 NTA: 069306591 PLWABN: 9810627156405606 SELIBR: 187151 SUDOC: 033764387 Trove: 1137732 VIAF: 29630098 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n80158435 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Denis_Fonvizin&oldid=976771340" Categories: 1744 births 1792 deaths 18th-century dramatists and playwrights 18th-century Russian poets 18th-century male writers 18th-century translators French–Russian translators Members of the Russian Academy Moscow State University alumni People of the Age of Enlightenment Russian civil servants Russian male dramatists and playwrights Russian male writers Russian people of German descent Russian people of Polish descent Russian translators Translators from German Writers from Moscow Burials at Lazarevskoe Cemetery (Saint Petersburg) Hidden categories: Articles to be expanded from November 2018 All articles to be expanded Articles needing translation from Russian Wikipedia Articles containing Russian-language text Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikisource Languages العربية Azərbaycanca Беларуская Bosanski Català Čeština Deutsch Español Esperanto Français Frysk 한국어 Հայերեն Hrvatski Ido Italiano עברית Kurdî Latina Magyar مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Oʻzbekcha/ўзбекча Polski Português Română Русский Slovenščina Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 4 September 2020, at 22:18 (UTC). 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