Ermil Kostrov

Yermil Ivanovich Kostrov (c. 1755 – 1796) was the first to translate the Iliad into Russian. His father was a peasant from the Vyatka Governorate. Kostrov was educated in the Slavic Greek Latin Academy and received an annual pension from the Moscow University for odes and other poems he would write for special occasions. He lived in abject poverty and was prone to alcoholism. Apart from light verse and a book of odes, he also produced the first Russian translations of Ossian's poems and The Golden Ass.