Von Vízin, the first real Russian dramatist, comes in the rank of European artists. He is in everything Russian; his subject, characters and treatment are all Russian, but his plays are written with that “brilliant common-sense” which may be regarded as the characteristic of the European artist. It is well worth pointing out how his work, coming to an end during the first period of the French Revolution, approaches in spirit the work of the other authors in this book, who wrote a round century after him. This phenomenon is similar to much that can be observed not only in Russian art, but in Russian politics and society.
Denis Ivánovich Von Vízin (the name at Pushkin’s suggestion was Russianised into “Vonvízin” during the nineteenth century) was descended from a German prisoner of war. He was born in 1745 and educated at first by his father, his gratitude to whom he showed in the characters of Oldthought, in The Minor, and Flatternot, in The Choice of a Tutor. In 1760, after five years in a preparatory school he became a student at the Moscow University. In the next year he published a book of translations of
