DMITRIEV, IVAN IVANOVICH (176o-1837), Russian statesman and poet, was born at his father's estate in the Govern ment of Simbirsk on Sept. 2o, i76o. In consequence of the revolt of Pugachev the family was compelled to flee to St. Petersburg, and there Ivan entered the army. During the four years from 1810 to 1814 he served as minister of justice under the emperor Alexander. The rest of his life was devoted to literature. He took sides with Karamsin in the battle for a natural Russian language against the Old Slavonic Party. His poems include songs, odes, satires, tales, epistles, etc., as well as the fables—partly original and partly translated from Fontaine, Florian and Arnault—on which his fame chiefly rests. He also wrote a short dramatico epic poem on Yermak, the Cossack conqueror of Siberia.
His writings occupy three volumes in the first five editions; in the sixth (St. Petersburg, 1823) there are only two. His memoirs, to which he devoted the last years of his life, were published at Moscow in 1866.