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² In the four European cases I study, that elite sector actively involved in the promulgation of the national identity and consciousness, on the verge of the turn to nationality, found itself in crisis, usually caused by an acute discomfort of status inconsistency: The reality of their status did not correspond to its traditional definition, and thus they were rendered marginal—were of it in a way yet in a way were not. The groups themselves differed, however: In England, these were the new—Hen?cian—aristocracy, the gentry, and the increasingly literate urban population; in France and Russia, the nobility played the central role; in Germany, the creators and propagators of the national consciousness came from among the middle-class intellectuals, the Bildungsburger. In the American case, the “anomie” was due to the discrepancy between the English values and their implementation in relations with the colonies rather than to the position of one or another group in the colonies vis-à-vis other groups.

³ Ressentiment, a term coined by Nietzche (1887; rpt. “Genealogy of Morals,” in The Philosophy of Nietzsche [New York: The Modern Library 1927])Google ScholarPubMed, and later defined and developed by Scheler, Max (1912, rpt. Ressentiment [Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1961]), refers to a psychological state resulting from suppressed feelings of envy and hatred (existential envy) and the impossibility to satisfy these feelings (to get revenge or act them out). The sociological basis for ressentiment—or structural conditions that are necessary for the development of this psychological state—is, first, the fundamental comparability between the subject and the object of envy, or rather the belief on the part of the subject in the fundamental equality between them, which makes them in principle interchangeable. (This in fact is the structural basis of envy itself.) The second condition is the actual inequality (perceived as not fundamental) of such dimensions that it rules the practical achievement of theoretically existing equality out. (Scheler refers to the realization of such factual inequality, or inferiority, on the part of the subject, as the feeling of impotence.) The presence of these conditions renders a situation ressentiment-prone, irrespectively of the temperaments and psychological inclinations of the individuals who compose the relevant population. The situation is analogous to suicidogenic situations described by Durkheim.Google Scholar The sociological importance of ressentiment—or its creative power—consists in that it may eventually lead to the “transvaluation of values,” that is to the transformation of a value scale in a way which denigrates the supreme values in the original scale while elevating to the position of supreme values notions that are unimportant, totally nonexistant, or indeed bear in the original scale the negative sign. The effect produced by ressentiment is similar to what Furet calls “the Tocqueville effect,” based on Toqueville's argument regarding the emphasis ort equality in prerevolutionary France in The Old Regime and the French Revolution. In both cases the creative impulse comes from the unbearable inconsistency between expectations bred by certain changing aspects of reality and those aspects of reality which remain unchanging. In this respect ressentiment is also structurally similar to “anomie.” See my application of the concept in the analysis of national identity in France in “The Emergence of Nationalism in England and France: A Study in the Sociology of National Identity,” Research in Political Sociology, forthcoming.

⁴ Blum, J., “Russia,” in European Nobility in the 19th Century, Spring, D., ed. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1977), 68–97.Google Scholar

⁵ Beloff, M., “Russia,” in The European Nobility in the 18th Century, Goodwin, A., ed. (London: A. and Ch. Black, 1953), 172–181Google Scholar. Meehan-Waters, B., Autocracy and Aristocracy (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

⁶ “Dvorianstvo,” Enziclopedicheskiy Slovar' (St. Petersburg: Krokhaus and Evfron), X, 203–18.Google Scholar

⁷ Meehan-Waters, , Autocracy and Aristocracy, 138.Google Scholar

⁸ Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), 182.Google Scholar

⁹ Meehan-Waters, , Autocracy and AristocracyGoogle Scholar, 2. Quoted in ibid., 36.

¹⁰ List of the incumbents of the four top ranks in service hierarchy—the object of Meehan-Waters' analysis.

¹¹ Algarotti, ; quoted in Betoff, , “Russia,” 177.Google Scholar

¹² Meehan-Waters, , Autocracy and Aristocracy, 102–4.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid., 18.

¹⁴ Polnoye Sobraníe Zakonov or PSZ, 1722 (Complete Set of the Laws of the Russian Empire). Hereafter cited as PSZ.

¹⁵ PSZ, #3890, pt. 11.

¹⁶ PSZ, 11, 444.

¹⁷ This is dubious, however. There is no sign of relief in the evidence we have: literature and occasional diaries (for example, Dolgorukaia). It is probable, though, that during these decades, the experience of the instability itself stabilized on a certain level and was not aggravated.

¹⁸ Betoff, Max, “Russia,” 181.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Dukes, P., Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). 6.Google Scholar

²⁰ Romaovich-Slovatinski, A. V., Dvorianstvo v Rossii of nachala XVIII veka do otmeny krepostnogo prava (St. Petersburg: Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1870), 212.Google Scholar

²¹ Catherine II, , Zapiski Imperatritsy Ekateriny Vtoroy (St. Petersburg, 1907), 626.Google Scholar

²² Shtrage, M. M., Demokraticheskaia Intelligentsia Rossii XVIII veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1965, 262–3. The specific citations for the three edicts are 1765 #12,465, 1766 #12,723, and 1769 #13,306).Google Scholar

²³ Charter of Nobility, PSZ,#16.187, 1785; Diakov, M., “Dvoryanstvo,” Enzyclopedicheskii Slovar', X, 206–8.Google Scholar

²⁴ PSZ#11,751 PSZ (“O Rasmotrenii akta …”).

²⁵ Dukes, , Catherine, 55, 61–2.Google Scholar

²⁶ Beloff, , “Russia,” 187.Google Scholar

²⁷ Liubomirov, P. G., “Kniaz Shcherbatov i ego sochinenia,” in M. M.Shcherbatov, Neizdannye Sochinenia, Liubomirov, P. G., ed. (Moscow: Works of the State Historical Museum, 1935), vi-xi.Google Scholar

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³⁰ Shtrange, , Demokraticheskaia Intelligentsia, 254, 267Google Scholar. Ibid., 255. Quoted in ibid., 272.

³¹ Dukes, , Catherine, 196.Google Scholar

³² Novikov served on the Committee as a secretary, after which, in 1769 at the age of twenty-four, he founded his first periodical, “The Bumble Bee.”

³³ The first Russian newspaper appeared in 1703 and was published by Peter. Several periodicals of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow University, and Cadet Corps followed, Sumarokov's “Busy Bee” was the first journal published by a private person, and it lasted only one year (1759). The coming of age of the periodical press did not occur until Catherine. Already in the first half of her reign, twenty different journals circulated, and the number grew steadily. Catherine herself was an active contributor and sponsored several publications.

³⁴ Catherine II, , Zapiski, 627.Google Scholar

³⁵ Kniazhnin, Ya. B., “The Boaster,” lzbrannye Proizvedenia (Leningrad: Sovetskii Pisatel', 1961), 318.Google Scholar

³⁶ All the quotations from and references to the materials related to the Legislative Commission rely on Paul Dukes' excellent study of the noble opinion in it; Catherine, , 158; 147; 178–80; 129, 142, 174.Google Scholar

³⁷ Its most consistent representative was Kniaz' M. M. Shcherbatov. See Shcherbatov, , “Zamechanie na bol'shoi Nakaz Ekateriny,” 16–64 in Liubomirov, Kniaz' Shcherbatov, 16; Shcherbatov, O povrezhdenii nravov v Rossii (St. Petersburg: V. Vrublenskii, 1906), 16, 47; Liubomirov, Kniaz' Shcherbatov, xxviii.Google Scholar

³⁸ For example, “Basnia o docheriach pod'yachich.”

³⁹ Sumarokov, A. P., Polnoe Sobrante Vseh Sochinenii (Moscow: Novikov, 1781), IV, 62.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Makogonenko, G. P., ed., Poety XVIII veka (Leningrad: Sovetsky Pisatel', 1958), I, 38. It is significant that Sumarokov identified patriots with noblemen; his definition of the nation was very similar to that of Montesquieu; nation was, for him, the elite of the country, not the country as a whole; his was fundamentally an estate patriotism.Google Scholar

⁴¹ “Preface,” Dmitri The Pretender.

⁴² Sumarokov, , Polnoe Sobranie, VII, 356–8 (author's translation).Google Scholar

⁴³ One finds this view already in the first Russian manual of manners addressed to young noblemen, The Honest Mirror of Youth (Younnosti chestnoe zertasalo). Among the different useful instructions, such as “don't glut like a pig and don't blow…, to spatter everywhere” or “don't clean your teeth with a knife”, were included the following assertions: “Not a famous family and high birth make a nobleman, but noble and commendable deeds” and “a peasant would be more respected than a nobleman who does not keep his noble word and promise: that's why it happens even today, that some rather believe a peasant than a nobleman.” See “Iunosti chestnoe zertsalo,” in Alferov and Gruzinsky, Russkaia Literatura XVIII veka (Hrestomatia) (Moscow: Shkola, 1915).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Manning, Clarence A., ed., Anthology of Eighteenth-Century Russian Literature (New York: Kings' Crown Press, 1951), I, 35.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Alferov, and Guzinsky, , Russkaia Literatura, 81–82.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid., 324–50.

⁴⁷ Alferov, and Gruzinsky, , Russkaia Literatura, 410.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Actually, , bolyarin. Sochinenia Derzhavina (St. Petersburg: A. Smirdin, 1851), I, 198–203 (author's translation).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Enzyclopedicheskii Slovai, X, 207.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ The orthography of fon-Visin's name was changed into “Fonvisin” in the mid-nineteenth century by Professor Tihonravov, but Pushkin thought the change advisable much earlier, for, in his opinion, it would make the name more “Russian” and thus emphasize the national character of the writer he considered “a Russian of arch-Russians” (iz pererusskich russkiy).

⁵¹ “The Minor,” Act 4, scene 2, 138–9, Pervoe Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii Fonvinsina (Moscow: Shamov, 1888).Google Scholar

⁵² Fonvisin, , Pervoe Polnoe …, 812–4.Google Scholar

⁵³ Alferov, and Guzinsky, , Russkaia Literaturo, 89.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Alferov, and Gruzinsky, , Russkaia Literatura, 4.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Sumarokov, , Polnoe Sobranie, VI, 60–64.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See discussion of this criticism in Rogger, Hans, National Consciousness in 18th Century Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁷ Alferov, and Guzinsky, , Russkada Literatura, 41–56.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ibid., 39.

⁵⁹ Karamazin, , Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (St. Petersburg: S. Selivanovsky, 1803), IV, 280.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ See Krestova, L. V., “Otrazhenie formirovania russkoi natsii v russkoi literature i publitsistike pervoi poloviny XVIII veka,” in Voprosy Formirovania Russkoi Narodnosti i Natsii (Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1958), 253–96, especially 259.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See his lines on Washington, in “Vol'nost'.”Google Scholar

⁶² “Mednoe,” Puteschestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (Moscow: Gosizdat Khudozhestvennoi Literatury), 159–61.Google Scholar

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ See 3–14 July, 1769, p. 30 in Reddaway, , ed., Documents of Catherine the Great… (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ This discussion relies on Krestova, “Ostrazhenie formirovania.”

⁶⁶ Krestova, , “Ostrazhenie formirovania.”Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The Letters were first published in his Moscow Journal, the most popular periodical of the time, which had 300 subscribers—an extraordinary number by the standards of the time. The Letters appeared again in 1797. “Their numerous readers became inconspicuously educated in the traditions of the European civilization, as if they matured with the maturing of the young Russian traveller, learning to feel with his noble feelings, to dream with his beautiful dreams” (Buslayev in Alferov and Gruzinsky, Russkaia Literatura, 450).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Karamzin, N., Polnoe Sobranie Sochineneii (St. Petersburg: S. Selivanovsky, 1803), IV, 280.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Fonvisin, D., Pervoe Polnoe So6ra?ie S??hlnenii D. I. Fon-Visina, 1761–1792 (Moscow: K. Shipov, 1888).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Karamzin, N., Zapiska o Drevney i Novoy Rossii, Pipes, Richard, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 22.Google Scholar See analysis of Karamzin's ideas and their background in Pipes, Richard, Karamzin's Memoir of Ancient and Modern Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

⁷² From the French “petit maitre”; see excellent discussion in Rogger, National Consciousness, 48 et passim.

⁷³ Sobranie Sochinenii Yakova Kniazhnina (Moscow: A. Reshetnikov, 1809), III-IV, 134 (Act 2, scene 5).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ A Liar—the name of the German tutor in The Minor.

⁷⁵ Novikov, , Truten', (August 11, 1769), p. XVIIIGoogle Scholarin Alferov, and Gruzinsky, , Russkaia Literature, 206–7.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Fonvisin, , Pervoe Polnoe Sobranie …, 897. The letters are addressed to Count P. I. Panin. It is significant that not having yet found his bearing in Paris, Fonvisin already knows that Paris is not a real, but only an alleged, center of knowledge and taste.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid., 903–9.

⁷⁸ Incidentally, like many of Fonvisin's other aphorisms, this phrase is translated from Duclos.

⁷⁹ Chaadaev was proclaimed insane by Nicholas II, ; his “First Philosophical Letter,” published in 1836, was actually written in 1829.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Rogger, , National Consciousness, ch. 2.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Hans Rogger in his sensitive description, presented the incipient national consciousness in the eighteenth-century Russia as evolving in a series of antitheses, one element in each pair reflecting an aspect of the Western society and culture as perceived by Russians and the other, its opposite, upheld as a quality of Russian national character. These were antitheses such as mind and heart, form and substance, age and youth. The list can be continued indefinitely, but the series are organized around one principle: Every pair is but a variation on the theme of the rejection of reason.

⁸² “Chistoserdechnoe Priznanie v delach moich i pomyshleniach,” in Pervoe Polnoe Sobranje …, 856.Google Scholar

⁸³ Karamzin, , Polnoe Sobranje Sochinenii, VII,Google Scholar“O naukah …”, 77.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Ibid., 20, 24.

⁸⁵ Fonvisin, , Pervoe Polnoe Sobranje …, “The Minor,” Act 3, scene 1; Act 4, scene 1; pp. 121–2, 138.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Quoted, in Rogger, , National Consciousness, 270.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Fonvisin, , Pervoe Poinve Sobranie …, 907.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ “ Iunosti Chestnoe Zerzalo,” in Alferov and Gruzinsky, Russkaia Literature, Article 50 and others, 5–13 et passim.

⁸⁹ Novikov, , Truten', (6 October 1769), p. XXIVGoogle Scholar in Alferov, and Gruzinsky, , Russkaia Literatura, 207.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Chulkov, M. D., “A Bitter Dole,” from Peresmeshnik or Slavianskie Skazki, in Manning, Anthology, 110–4, at 111.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Zapiska o Drevney, Pipes, Richard, ed., 72–74 (Russian text).Google Scholar

⁹² Fonvisin, , Pervoe Polnoe Sobranie …, 908.Google Scholar

⁹³ Limitations of space do not allow elaboration on this point. The author, however, would be glad to share her thoughts on the nature of and aifinities between Slavophilism and Westernism, as well as evidence on which these thoughts are based, with interested readers.