Michael Wasitowitz, the father of Russian poetry and literature, was born in 1711, at a village near Cholomoghy, in the government of Archangel. In his boyhood he assisted his father in his humble calling London, of a fisherman, and with the aid of a priest during the long winters, acquired the art of reading. The perusal of Polotsk's poetical version of the Psalms, one of the few books he had, developed his genius for poetry, and excited in him a thirst for literary fame. Accordingly, repairing of his own accord to Moscow, he entered the Zaikonospaski Monastery, where he applied himself chiefly to the study of the learned languages. After a short interval spent at the University of Kiev, he removed in 1734 to the newly-instituted Academy of St Petersburg, where he devoted two years to mathematics and natural science. He was then sent, at the expense of the Academy, to study under Christian Wolf, at Marburg in Hesse-Cassel. Here, during his intervals of leisure, he perused the German poets, a study which he continued when after the lapse of four years he removed to Freiberg in Saxony, to acquire a practical knowledge of mineralogy and mining under Henckel. On his return to St Petersburg in 1741, he was elected an associate of the Academy. He was appointed in 1745 professor of chemistry; and in 1760 rector of the gymnasium and university. In 1764 he was honoured by the Empress with the title of counsellor of state. He died in April 1765, and was interred with great honour.

Lomonosov's multifarious labours comprise translations into Russian from several languages living and dead, and treatises upon meteorology, chemistry, criticism, rhetoric, history, and chronology. He may be said by his grammar to have drawn out the plan, and by his poetry to have built up the fabric of his native language. Besides several odes and translations in verse, he wrote an heroic poem in two cantos on Peter the Great, a work said to be unsurpassed by any Russian poet. He also produced Annals of the Russian Sovereigns, and the History of Russia from the Origin of that Nation to the Death of the Great Duke Yaroslaf I. The latter has been translated into German and French. The principal works of Lomonosov have been published in 3 vols. Svo.