Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to outline the career of Vasily Teplov during his time at the
St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, with a special focus on his approach to translation.
The first attempts at translating foreign books at the Russian Academy of Sciences
were undertaken shortly after its foundation, and the number of translated
books increased significantly in a short period of time. Because there were so few
translators at the Academy, issues relating to the environment in which their training
was carried out deserve special attention. Our focus on Teplov is motivated by
the fact that he prepared a translation of the New French Grammar, the first Russian
printed grammar manual of the French language; his translation was published in
1752. The conditions and circumstances in which the New French Grammar was prepared
are important in establishing translation activities at the Academy in the
middle of the 18th century. Our study is based on published and unpublished materials
stored in the collections of the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the
Russian Academy of Sciences. As we do not encounter any references to Teplov in
documents from the Academy before the early 1760s, our study of Teplov’s life and
activity does not purport to be complete—indeed, it proposes further research in
this field. We also provide some pieces of information regarding the life and customs
of academic society in the middle of the 18th century
