Grigorii Leontievich Braiko

A descendant of Malorossia nobility. From Kiev-Mohyla Academy he was transferred to the University of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1764-1765), then studied law and languages at Göttingen and Kiel Universities. On his return from Germany he made translations for the Academy of Sciences. In 1773 he was recommended to Mikhail Shcherbatov as a translator from Latin and Polish, and was engaged by him to describe the archives of Peter I. His first literary experience was the translation of the extract from the "Geography" by Anton Friedrich Büsching, namely "The Kingdom of England" (“Korolevstvo Aglinskoe”) (1772). Together with Iakov Knyazhnin and Bogdan Arndt, he published the magazine "Saint Petersburg Herald" (“Sankt-Peterburgskii vestnik”) (1778-1781), where his translations from "Dialogues of Diogenes" (“Dialogi Diogena”) by Christoph Martin Wieland, discourse "On Domestic Welfare" (“O domashnem blagosostoianii”) and philosophical idyll "Irin" by Ewald Christian von Kleist and "Eternity" (“Vechnost”) by Albrecht von Haller all appeared. Under pressure from the authorities, the journal ceased to exist. Counselor to the Russian embassy in Venice (1783) and the Russian mission in Vienna (1789).