KARAMZIN, Ica'rain-zen, Nicholas Mik hailovitch, Russian historian: b. 1766; d. 1826. Descended from a noble Tartar family, he re ceived an excellent education combined with travel in England, France, Germany and Switzerland. Of a highly sentimental nature, he appears to have looked back into the ro manticpast of history and ignored the prosaic and reformed conditions of his time. Though profoundly influenced by French and English literature, he was intensely Russian in spirit, re garding his own country as the acme of national perfection and totally separate or self-contained from the rest of Europe. He expounded his faith in two novels, 'Natalia, the Boyard's Daughter> and 'Poor Liza' in 1792, striving, above all, to rid the Russian language from the 'heavy antiquated forms' of German influence. 'Pseudo-classicism') was the key-note of such literature as Russia then possessed. His 'Gen
eral History of Russia' (Saint Petersburg 1816-17) was a grandiose work, rich in labori ous research as well as errors, and proved an instantaneous success. He added to it during the next 10 years, making a total of 12 volumes. Together with Novikoff, author of the 'His torical Dictionary of Russian Writers,' and the poet Joukovsky, Karamzin gave the death-blow to "pseudo-classicism' and there arose, as by magic, that brilliant band of poets and novelists who created a Russian national literature worthy of the name, and of whom the greatest was Pushkin. Consult Bruckner, A., 'A Liter ary History of (New York 1908) ; Kropotkin, P., 'Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature' (New York 1916) ; Waliszewski, K., 'A History of Russian Literature' (New York 1910).