The career of Nikolai Karamzin falls into two distinct phases: his literary career, which ended in 1803, and his career as a major historian, which occupied the rest of his life. As a literary figure, he is chiefly associated with Russian Sentimentalism. This was not a term he used himself, preferring instead to use the almost untranslatable “chuvstvitel’nost’ ” [“sensitivity”, “sensibility”, or “sentimentality”] and the associated adjective “chuvstvitel’nyi”. The genre had its origins in France, and was brought to Russia by Karamzin and his friend the poet Ivan Dmitriev.
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamazin …
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