The Presidential Library portrays Russian historian and writer Nikolay Karamzin

The famous Russian historian, writer, critic Nikolay Karamzin was born on December 12 (1 according to the old style) December 1766.

Little-known facts about the life and career of the author of the History of the Russian State are included in the materials of the electronic collection Nikolay Karamzin (1766-1826) available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

The idea of ​​creating a work on Russian history came to Karamzin very early. In 1789, on a trip to Europe, he wrote from Paris that our history was no less entertaining than others, "one only needs intelligence, taste, talent".

Academician Mikhail Pogodin in his work Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin based on his writings, letters and reviews of contemporaries (1866) cites a letter from Nikolay Karamzin to Mikhail Muravyov, Comrade Minister of Education, written in September 1803.

On October 31, 1803 by personal decree of Emperor Alexander I, Nikolay Karamzin was granted the title of a historiographer. Karamzin devoted the rest of his life to writing the History of the Russian State, consisting of 12 volumes and brought up to 1612.

The first publications of this work impressed contemporaries. Some of them are given in the essay by Professor Ilya Shlyapkin The First Russian Historian Nikolay Karamzin (1766-1826) (1916). So, the lawyer, and later the historian Alexander Turgenev, rejoiced that at last the Russians had or would soon have a history worthy of the Russian people. Alexander Pushkin noted that Karamzin spoke with all the fidelity of a historian and the History of the Russian State is not only the creation of a great writer, but also the feat of an honest man”. Traveler Count Fyodor Tolstoy said: "Now I know that I have a fatherland".

Later, the historian, Professor Sergei Solovyov called the History of the Russian State "a majestic poem that glorifies the state".

Another historian, Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, also believed that the main subject of Karamzin's historical work is the history of the state. In the book Biographies and Characteristics (1882), he wrote that in History... the patriotic feeling of the author, which is involuntarily communicated to the reader, was extremely pronounced, and the key to all Russian history, according to Karamzin, is state unity. According to the History of the Russian State, people learned about with what happened in ancient times, found lessons in high morality in it, learned from it to love their native land, love good and hate evil, despise lies, deceit and flattery, recalled Bestuzhev-Ryumin.

Assessing the significance of this multi-volume work by Karamzin for contemporaries and descendants, Mikhail Pogodin said that the Russians learned and loved their fatherland more than before, because "we can only love what we know, and the more we know, the more we love".

More interesting facts about Nikolay Karamzin is available On this Day section on the institution's portal.