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Political Ideals and Loyalties of Some Russian Writers of the Early 1760s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Walter Gleason
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Extract

During the initial years of her reign, Catherine II had to contend with political criticism and expectation of reform among nobles such as Denis Fonvizin and Ippolit Bogdanovich. Many Soviet scholars, particularly Makogonenko, Gukovskii and Pigarev, argue that the political writings of these critics can be interpreted as the initial evidence of a “constitutional” movement in Russia similar to those of mid-seventeenth century England and late eighteenth century France. The goal was to force Catherine to share political power by accepting “fundamental laws” or a “constitution.” Convinced of the need for such reforms, Fonvizin, Bogdanovich, and several other lesser known writers tried unsuccessfully in 1762 to win Catherine's approval of their projects. Failing to gain Catherine's support, the nobles became her political opponents —consistently and insistently advocating their political principles. This interpretation is valuable for its focus on the question of sovereignty and the individual's relation to the ruler as well as appealing for its attempt to integrate Russian events into a broader, European framework. Yet Soviet historians do not adequately specify and evaluate the theoretical origins of this “constitutional“ opposition. General references to contemporary European thinkers (British, French or German political philosophers) obscure their differences and assume the transfer of western European political ideas into Russia intact and unaltered in content or understanding. It is necessary, therefore, to investigate carefully the theoretical origins of the Russian writers' political ideals, their own version of these ideals, and the implications these opinions had for the writers' relationship to the ruler during the early 1760s.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 560 - 575
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

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References

1. Aside from numerous introductory essays to edited works, for the important monographs see Makogonenko, G., Nikolai Novikov i russkoe prosveshchenie XVIII veka (Moscow and Leningrad, 1951)Google Scholar; Makogonenko, G., Denis Fonvizin: Tvorchcskii puf (Moscow and Leningrad, 1961)Google Scholar; Makogonenko, G., Ot Fonvizina do Pushkina (Moscow, 1969)Google Scholar; Pigarev, K. V., Tvorchestvo Fonvizina (Moscow, 1954)Google Scholar; Gukovskii, G., Ocherki po istorii russkoi literatury XVIII veka: Dvorianskaia fronda v literature 1750-kh-1760-kh godov (Moscow, 1936)Google Scholar; and Gukovskii, G., Russkaia literatura XVIII veka (Moscow, 1939)Google Scholar.

2. For example, Makogonenko states in the introduction to Denis Fonvizin that Russian writers’ “ties with the French and German Enlightenment are not fully discovered. …” The author then begins his study by virtually omitting not only the possible intellectual influences on Fonvizin before 1762, but also any mention of his subject's life before 1762. A remark about Fonvizin's first translations of the writings of Voltaire and Holberg states that “already the writer's initial literary efforts show the ties with the works of the enlighteners—Voltaire and Holberg. From youth, enlightened doctrine about man, [and] social and political problems attracted the attention of Fonvizin.” The biography starts with a subject who is already formed intellectually and categorized as an “enlightener.” This vague classification does little to specify “the ties with the French and German Enlightenment.” See Makogonenko, , Denis Fonvizin, pp. 4 and 16 Google Scholar.

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4. Pavel Fonvizin (1745-1803) coupled a long government career with a continuous interest in literature. His important service appointments were as an assistant to Grigorii Orlov at the peace congress at Focsani in 1772 and as a director of Moscow University with the rank of brigadier in 1784. He reached his highest rank in 1786 with a promotion to the second rank of privy councillor. See Longinov, M, “Russkie pisateli XVIII veka,” Rtwskaia starina, 1871, no. 4, pp. 574–75Google Scholar.

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13. Ibid., 1: 301-11.

14. Ibid., 1: 403-4; 2: 340-48, 362-69, 536-37.

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30. Ibid., p. 334.

31. Pufendorf, , De Officio Hominis, 2: 114 Google Scholar.

32. Pufendorf, Elementorum, 2: 76.

33. Ibid., pp. 287-88.

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35. Ibid., p. 133; Wolff, , Gesammelte Werke, 26: 589–90Google Scholar. The reference was to relations between masters and serfs on estates but was used by Wolff inferentially as an example of the rights and duties of members of several types of associations such as the family, the estate, and the civil government.

36. Ibid., pp. 144-45; Wolff, , Gesammelte Werke, 26: 605 Google Scholar.

37. Wolff, , Jus Gentium, 2: 308 Google Scholar.

38. The student periodicals from 1760 to 1764 were quite similar to the didactic journals throughout western Europe which were patterned on the Spectator. The first Russian “moral weekly” was Poleznoe uveselenie, published weekly from January 1760 to December 1761 and thereafter monthly until closed in June 1762. Its editor, Mikhail Kheraskov (1733-1807), subsequently began publication of a monthly, Svobodnye chasy, in January 1763. At the same time as Svobodnye chasy, Bogdanovich edited a new monthly, Nevinnoe uprashnenie, which closed in June 1763. Dobroe natnerenie was a monthly published in 1764 under the editorship of Vasilii Sankovskii.

39. Domashnev, S, “Son,” Poleznoe uveselenie, December 1761, no. 23, pp. 209–20Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., p. 211.

41. Ibid., p. 213.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid., p. 209.

44. Ibid., pp. 215-18.

45. For other examples, see A. Karin, “Son: Khram dobrodeteli,” ibid., December 1761, no. 26, pp. 249-59; Andrei Nartov, “Rech1 skifskago posla k Aleksandru Velikomu,” ibid., January 1761, no. 5, pp. 41-44; Dmitrii Anichkov, trans., “Rech’ kotoruiu govoril odin razumnoi chelovek iz garamantov k Aleksandru Velikomu,” ibid., September 1761, no. 11, pp. 81-91.

46. G. K. [Grigorii Kozitskii], trans., “Kratkoe izobrazhenie o estestve, pol'ze i neobkhodimoi potrebnosti voiny i ssor,” Trudoliubivaia pchela, September 1759, pp. 571- 74Trudoliubivaia pchela was the immediate predecessor of the periodicals of 1760 to 1764. The editor, A. P. Sumarokov, published monthly issues from January to December 1759.

47. Ibid., p. 574.

48. For example, see Permskii, M, “Rech” nekotorogo krest'ianina, … k rimskim senatoram,” Dobroe namerenie, August 1764, pp. 372–83Google Scholar; September 1764, pp. 401-18. Another later example of a distrust of rulers and the corresponding fear of wars was clear in Bogdanovich's translation in 1771 of Rousseau's long commentary on the project for a “république européenne” as proposed by Charles Drenee Castel, Abbé de Sainte Pierre (1658-1743). See Rousseau, J. J., Extrait du Projet de paix perpétuelle de Monsieur I'Abbé de Saint-Pierre (n.p., 1761)Google Scholar.

49. Ibid., p. 402.

50. Ibid., pp. 374-75.

51. Billington, James, The Icon and the Axe (New York, 1966), p. 1966 Google Scholar.

52. Paul Jérémie Bitaubé, Iosif. Trans, and with an intro. by Fonvizin, in Fonvizin, , Sobranie sochinenii, 1: 443 Google Scholar.

53. Quoted in Shefer, A. [Schaefer, A.], “Iz poslednikh dnei russkoi imperatritsy Elisavety,” Chteniia v moskovskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei, no. 2 (1877), p. 5 Google Scholar.

54. Ibid., p. 1.

55. Bogdanovich, I. F., “Oda na den’ vosshestviia na vserossiiskii prestol ego velichestva gosudaria imperatora PETRA FEODOROVICHA, samoderzhtsa vserossiiskogo,” Poleznoe uveselenie, January 1762, p. 1 Google Scholar.

56. Ibid., p. 4.

57. Ibid., p. 5.

58. I. F. Bogdanovich, “Oda eia imperatorskomu velichestvu, gosudaryne Ekaterine Alekseevne, samoderzhitse vserossiiskoi. Na novyi 1763 god,” in Bogdanovich, I. F., Sochineniia Bogdanovicha. Ed. Smirdin, A., 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1848), 1: 252–56Google Scholar. For the dating of the ode in 1762, see Bogdanovich, , Stikhotvoreniia i poemy. Ed. Serman, I. Z. (Leningrad, 1957)Google Scholar, note to pp. 150-53. See also Karin, Aleksandr, “Oda na den' vosshestviia na prestol imperatritsy Ekateriny II,” cited in Saitov, , Fedor Grigor'evich Karin, p. 22 Google Scholar, and Sergei Domashnev, “Oda na vosshestvie na prestol imperatritsy Ekateriny II,” cited in Longinov, M, “Russkie pisateli XVIII veka,” Russkaia starina, 1871, no. 3, p. 206 Google Scholar.

59. [Denis Fonvizin, trans.], “Rech’ kotoruiu glavnoi zhrets Memfisa, govoril, pri pogrebenii Egipetskoi tsaritsy, mated Sifovoi,” Sobranie luchshikh sochinenii k rasprostraneniiu snaniia i k proisvedeniiu udovol'stviia, part 3 (July-September 1762), pp. 105-12. Jean Terrasson (1670-1750) was a French writer who wrote Séthos probably in imitation of Fenelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque, Fits d'Ulysse. Fonvizin published his translation in four parts, between 1762 and 1768. See Fonvizin, , Sobranie sochinenii, l: xv Google Scholar.

60. Ibid: , p. 106.

61. Ibid., p. 108.

62. Ibid., p. 107.

63. Longinov, M. N., Novikov i moskovskie martinisty (Moscow, 1867), pp. 11–12 Google Scholar; and Vernadskii, G., Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov, p. 4 Google Scholar.

64. Longinov, , Novikov, p. 13 Google Scholar.

65. P. E. (?), “Predislovie,” Truten, p. viii. The editor is not known, though probably Efremov.

66. M. D. Khmyrov, “Primechanie,” in Longinov, M, “Russkie pisateli XVIII veka,” Russkaia starina, 1871, no. 3, note no. 3 to p. 205 Google Scholar.

67. Longinov, M, “Russkie pisateli XVIII veka,” Russkaia starina, 1870, no. 2, p. 74 Google Scholar.

68. Catherine's justification of the coup of June 28 and her intentions as the new ruler were summarized in her manifesto of July 6, 1762. See Bil'basov, V. A., Istoriia Ekateriny Vtoroi, 12 vols. (Berlin, 1900), 2: 84–91 Google Scholar. For a recent interpretation of Catherine's intent to rule by laws, see Griffiths, D, “Catherine II, The Republican Empress,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 21, no. 3 (1973): 323–44Google Scholar.

69. Fonvizin, , Sobranie sochinenii, 2: 94 Google Scholar. See also Viazemskii, , Fonvizin, p. 465 Google Scholar.

70. Ibid. For a copy of the original ukaz of 1763, see Viazemskii, , Fonvizin, p. 466 Google Scholar.

71. Bogdanovich, I. F., “Avtobiografiia I. F. Bogdanovicha,” Otechestvennye zapiski, 1853, no. 87, p. 184 Google Scholar.

72. Ibid.

73. Longinov, M, “Russkie pisateli XVIII veka,” Russkaia starina, 1871, no. 4, p. 574 Google Scholar.

74. Vernadskii, , Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov, p. 4 Google Scholar.

75. Longinov, M, “Russkie pisateli XVIII veka,” Russkaia storina, 1870, no. 2, p. 74 Google Scholar

76. Bogdanovich retired in 1795 (d.1803); Denis Fonvizin in 1782 (d.1792); Pavel Fonvizin at an unspecified date during Paul's reign of 1796-1801 (d.1803); Sergei Domashnev in 1783 (d.1796); Aleksandr Karin died in service in 1769; and, the only exception, Nikolai Novikov retired in 1768 (d.1818).

77. Bogdanovich achieved promotions to sixth rank of collegial councillor (kollezhskii sovetnik); Denis Fonvizin the fifth rank of state councillor (statskii sovetnik);