Ivan Aleksandrovich Chashnikov

From the nobility. At birth he was enrolled in the Izmailovsky Regiment. Midshipman of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment (1795). After 1796 he was on leave, and then retired. At the age of fourteen he published two books of his translations from French. The collection "Selected Reading, or a Collection of Sensitive Stories furthering the Inspiration of Virtue" (“Izbrannoe chtenie, ili Sobranie chuvstvitelnykh i k vnusheniiu dobrodeteli spospeshestvuiushchikh povestei”) (1786) includes stories and anecdotes translated from various sources, imbued with sentimental attitudes and promoting the idea of an enlightened monarch and an ideal society based on everyone's concern for the public good and mutual assistance. The collection includes an episode on troglodytes from the "Persian Letters" of Charles-Louis de Montesquieu.