Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasil’evich (1711–65)

Endowed with scientific and literary genius, Lomonosov was a product and proponent of Russia’s eighteenth-century Westernization. He was trained under Christian Wolff, the philosophic luminary of German pietism, and shared his encyclopedic interests, contributing to Russia’s linguistic, literary and technological advancement. In his scientific work, particularly physical chemistry, he came to question the Cartesian physics and cosmology of his mentors.