He descended from a family of wealthy noblemen from Nizhny Novgorod. He began his service as a musketeer in the Preobrazhensky Regiment (1775-1779). From 1787 to 1790 he served as a prosecutor in the Tambov provincial magistrature. From 1794 to 1822 he was repeatedly elected district marshal of the nobility in Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan provinces. He was the first translator of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's “Confessions” into Russian (under the title “Ispoved”). He also translated from French into prose Salomon Gessner's idyllic poem "The Primeval Navigator" (“Pervobytnyi moreplavatel”) (1784). He is also credited with the translation of "Reflections" by Stéphanie Félicité de Genlis (“Razmyshleniia gospozhi Zhanlis”) (1808).
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