Yakov Borisovich Knyazhnin was Russia's foremost tragic author during the reign of Catherine the Great. Knyazhnin's contemporaries hailed him as the true successor to his father-in-law Alexander Sumarokov, but posterity, in the words of Vladimir Nabokov, tended to view his tragedies and comedies as "awkwardly imitated from more or less worthless French models".

Pskov is a city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, located about 20 kilometers (12 mi) east of the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population: 193,082 (2021 Census); 203,279 (2010 Russian census); 202,780 (2002 Census); 203,789 (1989 Soviet census).