LOMONOSOFF, MIKII sir. VA SILYEVI•CH ( 1711-651. A Russian poet, and scientist. He was the son of a well-to do fisherman of Denisovka. near Archangel. In 1729 he ran away to Moscow. where lie entered a classical school in 1731 ; in 1736 he was sent to the Academie Gymnasium at Saint Petersburg, and later in the same ream, with two other stu dents. to Germany. From 1736 to 1739 he was at Marburg under the tuition of the famous mathematician and philosopher C'hristian Wolff. Then for two years lie studied metallurgy at Freiberg.. Married to a German girl in 1740, he returned to Saint Petersburg, and was appointed adjunct in chemistry and physics (1742), and professor of chemistry in 1745. llis first successful verse was his Ode on the Capture of Khotin (1739), which he sent from abroad, along with a Letter on the Rules of New Russian Versification. Ile left numerous odes, epigrams, dramas. etc.. mostly in the pseudo-classical style;
his importance in Russian poetry is due to the new versification he introduced. His greatest ser vices to Russia lie in the sphere of philology: his Russian. Grammar (1755), an essay on The Im Iirtanrc of L'eecsinstieal Books. for the Russian Tongue (1755), and his Rhetoric have laid down the very foundations of the hitter-day Russian by drawing a distinct line of demarca tion between Russian and Church Slavonic. For this he is deservedly called 'the father of new Russian literature.' The hest edition of Lomonosoff's works is that of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, with a com mentary by the Academician Sukhondinoff. Only four volumes have appeared (Saint Petersburg, 1891-98). The best biography is by l'ekarski in his History of the Academy of Sciences, vol.
(Saint Petersburg, 1S73).