Drevni︠a︡i︠a︡ rossiĭskai︠a︡ istorii︠a︡ ot nachala rossiĭskago naroda do konchiny velikago kni︠a︡zi︠a︡ I︠A︡roslava Pervago ili do 1054 goda / sochinennai︠a︡ Mikhaĭlom Lomonosovym.

Drevni︠a︡i︠a︡ rossiĭskai︠a︡ istorii︠a︡ ot nachala rossiĭskago naroda do konchiny velikago kni︠a︡zi︠a︡ I︠A︡roslava Pervago ili do 1054 goda / sochinennai︠a︡ Mikhaĭlom Lomonosovym.

This is the history of Russia after the founding of St. Petersburg... although that's not quite true, because although it was written after the founding, Lomonosov's History takes us only to the year 1054. Maybe the reason for the discrepancy in size between this tome and Mr. Fletcher's little book has to do with the glory of St. Petersburg. Librarians and booksellers are used to seeing "firsts" among the descriptions in booksellers' catalogs, and even though there can be only one "first," Lomonosov uses up a lot of them. He has been called the first great universal genius in Russian history – Pushkin called him "our first university." This volume is the first history of Russia to be written with a western approach, even though the site of the future Sankt Pieter Burkh would still be swampland for another 650 years (a second chronicle brought Russian history up to the reign of Peter the Great). And this is said to be the first Russian book of which an English translation was published. Lomonosov was the son of a peasant and had to overcome great difficulties on his way to becoming the distinguished scholar. He was appointed professor of chemistry at St. Petersburg in 1745, but was also top-notch in geology, geography and other areas of the natural sciences, astronomy, the arts, linguistics, mining and metallurgy, history, and education; he wrote verses and plays, and developed a new method of making colored glass, using it to create mosaic pictures and portraits, including one of Peter the Great. Named after him is a museum in Petersburg as well as a University in Moscow; a single-mirror telescope; an underwater ridge in the Arctic Ocean; a plateau in Norway; a city in Leningrad Oblast; and a mountain range on Novaia Zemlia.

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