Aleksandr Ablesimov

Ablesimov, Aleksandr Onisimovich 

Born Aug. 27 (Sept. 7), 1742, in Galich District, Kostroma Province; died 1783, in Moscow. Russian writer, born into a family of petty landowners.

Ablesimov’s best work is the comic opera The Miller, the Magician, the Swindler, and the Matchmaker (produced and published in 1779), which depicts the life of the peasantry and captures the local color of popular speech. The music to the opera was written by M. M. Sokolovskii, who used themes of Russian songs (after 1792 it was played to the music of E. I. Fomin). Ablesimov also wrote fables, comedies, and satirical poems. He contributed to satirical magazines and published the magazine The Narrator of Entertaining Fables (parts 1–2, 1781).

WORKS

Soch. St. Petersburg, 1849.
[Soch.] In Russkaia komediia i komicheskaia opera XVIII. v. Moscow-Leningrad, 1950.

REFERENCE

Istoriia russkoi literatury XVIII v. Bibliograficheskii ukazateV. Edited by P. N. Berkov. Leningrad, 1968.