Gerasim Lebedev

Gerasim Stepanovich Lebedev, also spelled Herasim Steppanovich Lebedeff (Russian: Гера́сим Степа́нович Ле́бедев; 1749 – July 27, 1817), was a Russian adventurer, linguist, pioneer of Bengali theatre (founded Hindu Theatre in 1795), translator, musician and writer. He was a pioneer of Indology.

Lebedev was born in Yaroslavl, Russia, to a family of a church choirmaster. Gerasim was the oldest son in the family. He had two brothers: Afanasy and Trefil and sister Antonida. The family later moved to Saint Petersburg where Lebedev's father worked in a church. Lebedev learned English, French and German by his own effort. In Saint Petersburg Lebedev became acquainted with Fyodor Volkov, the founder of the first permanent Russian theater. Lebedev was a singer in the court choir and participated in the performances of Volkov's theater as well.

He was a self-taught violinist and accompanied Andreas Razumovsky, the ambassador designate from Russia to Vienna, as a member of a musical group. He fled the entourage and travelled across Europe, earning his livelihood as a violinist. He soon joined an English military band that was being sent to India. Lebedev arrived at Madras (now Chennai), a port in southern India in August 1785. He was felicitated by the mayor of Madras and earned some money from musical programmes. However, the conservative society stifled him and so after living in Madras for a couple of years he left for Bengal.

Raha, Kironmoy

Lebedev lived in Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the capital of British India, for about ten years. During his stay, he started to learn Hindi, Sanskrit and Bengali from a local schoolteacher named Golokhnath Das. In exchange, Lebedev had to teach Das violin and European music. With the support of a Russian doctor, then practicing in Calcutta, he was soon established as a musician. Tickets for his musical programmes were priced at Rs. 12. Lebedev was the first person to use Indian tunes on Western musical instruments.

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