Antiochus Kantemir

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Not to be confused with his uncle of the same name but better known as Antioh Cantemir.
A portrait of Kantemir

Antiochus

Russian poetry
".

Life

Kantemir was born into a

St Petersburg Academy[1] before moving to the family estate near Dmitrovsk.[citation needed
]

He served as the Russian ambassador at

minister plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of France.[2] There, he became a noted intellectual[1] and a close friend of Montesquieu and Voltaire. Kantemir died a bachelor in Paris amid litigation concerning his illegitimate children.[citation needed
]

Work

Considered "the father of

versification in 1744[citation needed] and numerous odes and fables.[1] His use of gallic rhyme schemes can make his work seem antiquated and awkward to modern readers.[citation needed
]

He edited his father's History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire in England and wrote a biography and bibliography of his father which later accompanied its 1756 edition.[4][2] His 1742 Letters on Nature and Man (O Prirode i Cheloveke) was a philosophical work.[citation needed] He is best remembered for his satires in the manner of Juvenal, including To My Mind: On Those Who Blame Education and On the Envy and Pride of Evil-Minded Courtiers, which were among the first such works in the Russian language.[2]

Kantemir translated

Algarotti's Dialogues on Light and Colors.[1]
He also translated
De Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, in 1730. When Kantemir's teacher, Christopher Gross, asked the academy to publish the translation, the responsible manager of the chancellery, Johann Daniel Schumacher
, wanted to first get permission from the government and the Holy Synod. Correspondence regarding the matter dragged on until 1738, when permission to publish was finally given, but the book was not published until 1740.[5]

Kantemir's own works were translated into French by the Abbé Guasco, who also penned his biography.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g EB (1878).
  2. ^ a b c d EB (1911).
  3. ^ a b Gusterin (2008).
  4. ^ London: N. Tindal.
  5. ^ Веселитский В. В., Антиох Кантемир и развитие русского литературного языка (1974), p. 20.

References

  • Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), "Antiochus Cantemir" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 28
  • Gaster, Moses (1911), "Cantemir s.v. Antioch Cantemir" , in Chisholm, Hugh (ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 209
  • ISBN 978-5-7873-0436-7{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    ). (in Russian)

External links

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