Ivan Petrovich Pnin was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and political

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 writer. In accordance with Russian Illegitimacy custom, Pnin's surname

Surname

A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...

 was the abbreviation of that of his father, Prince Nicholas Repnin

Nicholas Repnin

Prince Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin was an Imperial Russian statesman and general from the Repnin princely family who played a key role in the dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.- Rule of Poland :...

.

Born out of wedlock, he famously deplored the status of illegitimate children in his 1802 petition to Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

. (Pnin's father was rumored to have also illegitimately fathered Poland's Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was a Polish-Lithuanian noble, statesman and author. He was the son of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and Izabela Fleming....

.)

Pnin's liberal Essay on the Enlightenment in Russia

Russian Enlightenment

The Russian Age of Enlightenment was a period in the eighteenth century in which the government began to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and sciences. This time gave birth to the first Russian university, library, theatre, public museum, and relatively independent press...

(1804) attacked serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

 and therefore was banned in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

.

The titles of Pnin's best-known poems, Man (1804) and God (1805), mirror Derzhavin

Derzhavin

Derzhavin may refer to:* Gavrila Derzhavin, Russian poet and statesman* 23409 Derzhavin, minor planet...

's on purpose, as he sought to refute the great poet's idealism

Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

 by taking up the Deist stance of Radishchev

Radishchev

Radishchev is an urban locality in Nizhneilimsky District of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. Population: The settlement was named after Alexander Radishchev, a famous Russian author....

, Volney, and d'Holbach.