Not one of his contemporaries possessed so profound and varied a knowledge of the Russian popular and book languages, and this knowledge it was which enabled him to make such a wide choice between the ancient Church Slavonic, ancient Russian, the popular, and the bookish tongues.
In Peter the Great's Epoch of Reform, the modern "secular" or "civil" alphabet was substituted for the ancient Church Slavonic, and the modern Russian language, which Lomonosoff did so much to improve, began to assume shape, literature and science at last freeing themselves completely from ecclesiasticism and monasticism.
The first writer to divorce literature and science, like Lomonosoff, a talent of the transition period, between the Epoch of Reform and the brilliant era of Katherine II .-- a product, in education and culture, of the Reform Epoch, though he strove to escape from its traditions--was Alexander Petrovitch Sumarokoff (1717-1777).

Insignificant in comparison with Lomonosoff, the most complete contrast with the peasant-genius by his birth and social rank, which were of the highest, he was plainly the forerunner of a new era; and in the sense in which Feofan Prokopovitch is called "the first secular Russian writer," Sumarokoff must be described as "the first Russian literary man." The Empress Anna Ioannovna had had a troop of Italian actors, early in her reign; and in 1735 a troop of actors and singers.

The Empress Elizaveta Petrovna revived the theater, and during her reign there were even two troops of actors, one French, the other Italian, for ballet and opera-bouffe (1757), both subsidized by the court.

Sometimes an audience was lacking at their performances, and on one occasion at least, Elizaveta Petrovna improved upon the Scripture parable; when an insufficient number of spectators presented themselves at the French comedy, she forthwith dispatched mounted messengers to numerous persons of rank and distinction, with a categorical demand to know why they had absented themselves, and a warning that henceforth a fine of fifty rubles would be exacted for such dereliction of duty.
A distinctive feature of Elizaveta's reign was the growth of closer relations with France, which at this period represented the highest culture of Europe.

Dutch and German influences which had hitherto impressed themselves upon Russian society, now gave place to French ideas.