Petrine era

The modernization of Russia, commonly associated with Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, coincided with a reform of the Russian alphabet and increased tolerance of the idea of employing the popular language for general literary purposes. Authors like Antiochus Kantemir, Vasily Trediakovsky, and Mikhail Lomonosov in the earlier 18th century paved the way for poets like Gavrila Derzhavin, playwrights like Alexander Sumarokov and Denis Fonvizin, and prose writers like Alexander Radishchev and Nikolay Karamzin; the latter is often credited with creation of the modern Russian literary language.