Nikolai Nikolaevich Bantysh-Kamenskii

From a family of Moldavian boyars who left Moldavia in 1711 with the hospodar Dimitri Cantemir, he was educated at the Greek School of Nizhyn, at Kiev-Mohyla Academy, and Moscow University, where he studied physics, mathematics, history, and French. He served at the Archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. During his studies at the University he translated vol. 1 of Voltaire's "History of Russia under Peter the Great" under the title "Istoriia Rossii pri Petre Velikom" (1761). He published (in Latin) a manual on philosophy "Elementa philosophiae recentioris" ("Elements of recent philosophy"), based on the works of Friedrich-Christian Baumeister.