Mikhail Popov (writer)
Mikhail Ivanovich Popov was a Russian writer, poet, dramatist and opera librettist of the 18th century.
Biography
Born into a merchant family, he was a pupil of Fyodor Volkov. After 1757 he was an actor at the Court Theatre in St Petersburg. He entered Moscow University in 1765, and began to translate comedies from German and French. He wrote a collection of lyrics called “Songs”. In 1771 he published Slavenskie drevnosti, ili Priklyucheniya slavenskikh knyazei, an adventure novel with "traditional stock subjects from European chivalric novels that have been given an ancient Slavic coloration"; it was very popular, being republished three times by 1794.During 1771–1772 he translated the poem Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso. Together with Mikhail Chulkov, he published a collection of Russian folk songs. His own collection of songs, Russian Erota or the Collection of the Best and Newest Russian Songs, was published posthumously in 1791. Popov wished to popularize Slavic mythology, which had been largely forgotten in Russia in his time, as a more patriotic alternative to Greek and Roman mythology. To this end, he conducted some rather inaccurate research and wrote the essay, Описание древнеславянского баснословия. He included this essay in the collection of his poems, translations and plays called Dosugi, published at the request of Empress Catherine II. This collection also contained his famous libretto to the opera Anyuta.