Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin

From a noble family. Secretary of Nikita Panin, state councillor. He entered the nobility department of the University Gymnasium in Moscow (1755). He was a student at Moscow University (1761). In 1761 he was commissioned by one of Moscow’s booksellers to translate Holberg's fables from German. In 1762 he translated the political-didactic novel by the French writer abbé Terrason "The Heroic Virtue or the Life of Seth, King of Egypt" (“Geroiskaia dobrodetel, ili zhizn’ Sifa tsaria egipetskogo”), written in the manner of the famous “Télémaque” by Fénelon, the tragedy of Voltaire “Alzira or the Americans” (“Al’zira, ili amerikantsy”), and "Metamorphoses" by Ovid. He published his own works as well, the most famous being the comedy “Nedorosl’” (Young ignoramus).