Mosskaw / Moskva: Sumarokov's Translations of Fleming's Sonnets (1) (Stadt Mosskaw) (Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov‪)‬

Although Michael Henry Heim has pointed out that "translation was ... no more than a sideline for [Aleksandr Petrovich] Sumarokov" (2) (1717-77), and Harold B. Segel has established that Sumarokov has "virtually nothing in common with the baroque," (3) this Russian literary pioneer, whom Segel has called "the first truly modern writer in the history of Russian literature," (4) provided the Russian reading public in 1755 with its first translations of three sonnets by the German Baroque poet Paul Fleming (1609-40)--translations which are significant both for Russian literary history (5) and for the history of the international reception of German Baroque literature. Sumarokov's selection of these three poems--"an die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede," "An den Fluss Mosskaw / als er schiede," and "Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an / Als er ihre verguldeten Thurme von fernen sahe"--was for obvious reasons a natural one; Fleming had three times visited Moscow (1634, 1636 and 1639) with Adam Olearius on the Holstein trade mission sent by Duke Friedrich III, and had written the poems while there, glorifying the Russian capital. Sumarokov, along with Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov (1711-65) and Vasilii Kirillovich Trediakovskii (1703-69), was instrumental in establishing the norms for the foundation of modern Russian literature. He had learned German (along with French, of course) and had become acquainted with contemporary European literatures at the Corps of Cadets (Sukhoputnyi shliakhetnyi korpus) in St. Petersburg, an academy for the sons of the nobility. He worked at introducing into Russian literature the various poetic and dramatic genres then current in western Europe, and although the sonnet was not one of the fashionable genres of the eighteenth century, Sumarokov tried his hand at it, producing, however, only nine, including the three Fleming translations.